Asher Roth

Call him a middle class suburbanite with an axe to grind. Call him a hip-hop frat boy. Heck, even call him a poseur. Just don't call Asher Roth the next Eminem. Because this white boy bristles at the comparison to hip-hop's reigning white knight. To be fair, Roth does differ from Em in everything from background to approach. Born in a suburb of Philadelphia, Roth started rhyme battling his buddies for fun in high school. While enrolled in an elementary education program at West Chester University, the enterprising amateur emcee created a MySpace artist page and built up a fanbase of "friends" that soon included Atlanta promoter Scooter Braun. With Braun as his manager, Roth put out the DJ Drama-helmed mixtape The Greenhouse Effect, got signed to SRC/Universal and generated some buzz with the dorm rat-baiting "I Love College," the first single from his 2009 debut Asleep in the Bread Aisle.