Remember that time we saw the Inkwell?

Not so quick, Asher Roth. The real Eminem might be back to claim his throne atop White Rap Mountain.

First of all, rather than spend the time it would take to organize my thoughts on a Friday afternoon (I can taste the beer already), I'll just point out that yesterday, Asher Roth's publicist emailed me to inform me that Asher Roth is blowing the fuck up.

The label has yet to even cut the check to whomever it is they cut to check to in order to have a song played on the radio and on MTV ad nauseum, and already, his song "I Love College" is becoming one of the best-selling songs on iTunes. People seem to be seeking it out by themselves, as if they actually like it.

I guess the prospect of hearing someone rap over Weezer's "Say It Ain't So," how ever so poorly, was just too tempting. I'll admit, I couldn't help but be somewhat amused by it myself, though I'm pretty sure it has more to do with when I was born than anything else. I'm still in love Neve Campbell a good 13 years after the fact, and for all I know, she could look like Nadya Suleman these days, i.e. like a cross between Angelina Jolie, and Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men.

Imagine what it's gonna be like once the TIs put the full weight of their promotions apparatus behind Asher Roth. It could be like the early '00s all over again, except with worse music, natch.

But hold on sec! I was perusing the hip-hop Internets just now, trying to catch up on the lastest between Pimpin' Curly and Officer Ricky, which I've come to realize might not be possible, if I'm ever gonna get any sleep, and I see Eminem has accomplished an arguably even more impressive feat. His song "Crack a Bottle" somehow managed jump from the lower reaches of the Billboard Hot 100 all the way to the very top, selling something like 400,000 copies in the last week.

Seriously? When the fuck did that song become popular? I remember when it hit the Internets, a month or so ago, and people didn't really seem to give a shit. I thought it was much better than the 50 Cent song that surfaced the same day (as a pure matter of coincidence, I'm sure), but nothing about it suggested to me that it was about to become the fastest selling digital song evar.

I wouldn't be surprised if shenanigans were involved. T.I. managed a similar feat a few months ago, and so did Flo Rida, earlier last year, so the TIs may have just pulled the same trick with this song as they did with those songs. My guess is that they released "Crack a Bottle" a few weeks ago, but didn't tell anyone, so it would chart, but it wouldn't do that well. Then they arranged for the song to be aggressively promoted last week on the front page of iTunes, and wherever else rubes go to pay for shit that's freely available to anyone who's capable of using a search engine. And voila! All of a sudden the song climbs 80 some-odd places to number one. They probably had the press release for this shit written up six months ago.

Even an audio recording of a room full of babies dying in a house fire would probably sell 100,000 copies, if it was advertised in all the right places, let alone something carrying the names of the three most popular rappers this decade. Keep in mind, "Crack a Bottle" features Dre and Fiddy, in addition to Em himself. So in that sense, this feat isn't all that impressive.

That being said, 50 Cent puts out new songs by himself all the time, and hardly anyone seems to give a shit. Does anyone know how many copies of that "I Get It In" bullshit he put out around the same time as "Crack a Bottle" sold? Probably not nearly as many. This might be the last time 50 Cent gets anywhere near the top of Hot 100, unless he does another song with Eminem.

Though to his credit, 50 Cent's accomplishments in hip-hop beef > [insert any number of things].