Vanderslice is a producer from Pennsylvania who has been releasing music for over five years now. Over the years, he’s released instrumental projects based on gospel, and he’s collaborated with Dallas producer Rob Viktum. For his latest project, he goes in on the guest spots, presenting The Best Album Money Can Buy.

The impression given is that the title is being a little sarcastic, while also hoping to be true, because Vanderslice seems to have gone through a lot of trouble to get some big names on this album. Over the course of ten tracks, we get appearances from Ghostface Killah, Blueprint, Freddie Gibbs, Cormega, Prodigy, Conway, Big Twins, Vic Spencer, J-Zone, Slug, Evidence, Percee P, and DJ Eclipse. If that sounds like a lot to pack into one album, that’s because it is. When you’re approaching an album as a producer, one of the risks of filling your album with guest artists is that it can sound disconnected if you’re not careful. Unfortunately, that’s what happens with The Best Album Money Can Buy. Vanderslice’s production is good, drawing upon the midtempo East Coast sound of the early to mid ‘90s, with some big drums and nice flips of soul samples. However, with the exception of a couple of guests, the majority of these guest spots run from uninspired to unfocused to downright sexist and homophobic. So while Blueprint brings his “A” game, and Evidence and Slug sound like they had fun trying to out-rhyme each other, a lot more of these guests were content to phone in generic gangsta verses. It’s especially frustrating, since you can hear the good album buried underneath this needless bullshit, where maybe Vanderslice could have bridged the excellent verses with some instrumental tracks and called it a day.

Is this The Best Album Money Can Buy? Far from it. If anything, this album serves as a reminder that paying for guest verses from name artists doesn’t mean it’s going to be good. Search carefully and find artists that you truly connect with and that are feeling your project, and the music will come together. As it is, a lot of good production on this album is getting buried underneath some sub-par lyricism, and on repeat listens, I’m skipping through the majority of the album to get to the good stuff.