Asher Roth, 'RetroHash'

By: David Savage

I’ve noticed artists will release “teaser trailers” for their albums which is what brought me to this record, RetroHash. For whatever reason, I looked on Asher Roth’s FaceBook page and noticed there was a link to a video “Pot of Gold”, so I checked it out. Turns out it was somewhat of a trailer for Asher Roth’s sophomore release, titled RetroHash. The video consisted of Asher riding a Sea-Doo followed by two topless women. In the background, the hook for the song “Pot of Gold” was playing. It was a mysterious one-minute video, but it caught my interest, and not just because of the topless women. The song playing in the background sounded nothing like the “I Love College” rapper I was familiar with.

I was a fan of Asleep in the Bread Aisle and heard some of his various singles that were released, so needless to say, I enjoy Asher Roth. There was something about this “Pot of Gold” video that intrigued me, because the sound was more developed and had a mellow, almost indie vibe to it. The first single, “Tangerine Girl”, was released and that was when I became extremely excited for RetroHash. The song spends the first half with just a chill vibe and falsetto singing Asher repeating the hook. Not exactly common for hip-hop to spend the first half of a track with predominantly instrumentals, but it worked. His vocal work was pretty impressive and unexpected.  

On April 22^nd, RetroHash was finally released and it was worth the wait. One word comes to my mind when I listen to this record, and that word is maturity. It’s easy to notice that this record is ahead of anything he has ever released; everything from instrumentation to lyrical themes is taken to the next level on RetroHash. “Fast Life” was one of those songs that took the record to a new maturity level for Asher. The video was a big reason for my love of this song, so go see for yourself why this song/video is an impressive level for this rapper.

Don’t get me wrong, there is still a slight taste of the rapper we know and fell for back when “I Love College” dropped. Songs like “Pull It” and “Last of the Flohicans” have that hint of childishness and laughability, but even “Dude” has some humorous wordplay that we like to hear from Asher Roth, with lines like “Good weed got me talking ‘bout deities/ Aphrodites, sucker for good lighting/ and neat handwriting, sorta like calligraphy/ trick or treat at thirty, dress up as Jackie Tree”. “Dude” also comes off sounding like a song by A Tribe Called Quest with that slick bass line throughout the track.

Overall this album takes Asher Roth’s reputation to a new level. Adding more real instrumentation and mature rhymes makes RetroHash an exquisite record for someone who used to be known as merely “The guy who sang ‘I Love College’”. The song “Pot of Gold” that was feature in the album trailer wasn’t released in its entirety until the record dropped, and that is another track of this album that is pure smooth, mellow, and mature hip-hop music. Asher Roth truly stepped his game on this record, and so when people say to me “He sings ‘I Love College’ right?” I tell them he is detrimentally more than that. Asher Roth holds an incredible amount of talent and maturity and it is great to see some of that spill out into his sophomore album, RetroHash.

Favorite Tracks: “Tangerine Girl”, “Parties at the Disco”, and “Pot of Gold”