White Beef: John Brown Vs Asher Roth

We've always said the most entertaining thing about hip-hop is beef between grafted-devil MCs. Whether it was 3rd Bass vs Vanilla Ice, El-P vs. Sole, or even the ménage a quatre of Eminem vs. Cage, Everlast, and Evidence, there's something so gosh darn cute about white on white lyrical feuds. So you can imagine how amped we got the other day when our Facebook buddy John Brown came out against Internet-It-Boy Asher Roth.

See, we all know John Brown is King of Da Burbz. But JB is heated that Roth'who just dropped his Don Cannon/DJ Drama mixtape last week'is rocking some burb-based iconography too. In a statement he sent to HHNLive.com, John said that “this dude and his…sidekick are so obviously a bunch of Stans that watched the White Rapper Show and then completely bit the whole burbs branding and lifestyle that I represented on the show and continue to represent in hip hop… It’s like his team tried to take the branding from John Brown and the sound of Eminem and create a Burb Frankestein.” So who has the upper hand? Read our analysis and vote after the jump.

ALIAS
John Brown: “King of Da Burbz”

Asher Roth: “Joe College”

Advantage: John Brown. His legitimacy is proved by the two creative misspellings in his honorific. That shit is mad hip-hop, son!

EASY COMPARISONS
John Brown: Dred Scott from Ghetto Revival…we guess. There's something nondescript about JB's style'nothing bad, just nothing standout.

Asher Roth: Eminem. It's true, Roth's voice is almost a dead ringer for Slim's, and his flow at times takes on Eminemish cadences.

Advantage: Asher Roth. What happened to the JB who spit nice 16s on The White Rapper Show?

INDICATIVE SONG
John Brown: “Pimp Mode.”

Despite a technically decent flow, Big Brown gets big demerits for resorting to bland clichéd hooks and lightweight lyrics.

Asher Roth: “Cannon Freestyle.”

Homie's got jokes'we have to admit he blacks out (whites out?) on this one, riffing hilariously on the “cannon!” sample.

Advantage: Asher Roth. Listen to both and tell us we're lying.

MIXTAPE
John Brown: King of Da Burbz

Asher Roth: The Greenhouse Effect

Advantage: Can we call it a tie? Apples and oranges. JB prefers those rider beats and lyrics about weed and Henny, while Asher Roth is on that punchline shit, weaving in topical references.

VOTE

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