Does Rhyme Still Pay? Slug & Evidence Weigh In On A Dope Vanderslice Beat (Audio Premiere)

Producer Vanderslice has been a source of dusty sounds for years. From the town of Phoenixville, outside of Philadelphia, the beat-miner has worked with Prodigy, Freddie Gibbs, Apathy, Roc Marciano, and others. He has released a string of instrumental and producer-compilation style albums.

‘Slice’s next LP is called The Best Album Money Can Buy, and it arrives July 10. Eric’s second single is “North American Money,” and it features Rhymesayers Slug and Evidence. In one of Vanderslice’s favorite moments of his veteran career, he provides a new dimension for the Atmosphere and Dilated Peoples O.G.s.

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“North American Money” is a soundscape journey that takes you through the inner thoughts of a person pursuing life and happiness, while existing within a capitalistic society. The lyrics are all based on wordplay dealing with money, debt, and trying to earn a living while being a rhyme-sayer. “It’s no silver spoon so I’m stealing this fork / It’s like I’m getting strangled by my own umbilical cord,” spits Slug. Evidence follows with a nod to Showbiz & A.G.: “I like my pockets fat, not flat / But when they fat, we chill, and when they flat, we back / We don’t get it right the first time, that’s facts / Until they start back-tracking property tax / Survive recession, so I’m always in possession / Of a necessary evil, last time I learned a lesson / Then wash my hands, ’cause this cash ain’t clean / More dirty secrets than M-16,” after signaling another D.I.T.C. MC in O.C. with “Of course we gotta pay bills, the night isn’t dead / But I’d still rather be broke then have a price on my head.” The collaborating lyricists, Slug and Evidence, left their mark on the song with back to back quotables.

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“This was the first song that we did for the album, the spark that lit the fire. Evidence and I have a bit of a rapport by now, but I couldn’t afford to pay these guys at the time, I was only going to do a couple of singles. I reached out to Slug, he called Ev’, they picked the beat, and I am forever grateful that they were both good to me when they really didn’t have to be,” Vanderslice tells AFH. “I’ve tried to do the same for people who I think are talented but need a helping hand to pay that karma forward, and in the coming months, every single piece of the puzzle I laid out started to come together one by one. It was pretty surreal the way it happened. The sample of the song is a Korean record, the girl sounds like she’s saying ‘money,’ so the concept was already laid, they did their thing, and It’s one of my favorites that I’ve ever done.”

The Best Album Money Can Buy also features appearances by Ghostface Killah, Freddie Gibbs, and what is said to be the last recorded verse by Mobb Deep’s Prodigy, which Heads got to hear on P’s birthday last November.

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The Best Album Money Can Buy tracklist:

1. The Best Intro Money Can Buy f/ Ghostface Killah
2. Thugs Need Hugs f/Blueprint
3. My Neighborhood f/ Freddie Gibbs
4. The Best Interlude Money Can Buy f/ Cormega
5. Hardbody Karate f/ Prodigy, Conway The Machine & Big Twins
6. Bone Museum f/ Vic Spencer
7. Chevrolet f/ J-Zone
8. North American Money f/ Slug & Evidence
9. The Best Freestyle Money Can Buy f/ Percee P & DJ Eclipse
10. We Got The Drop f/ Conway The Machine

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Additional Reporting by Jake Paine.

#BonusBeat: Check out Evidence’s New York City conversation with Ambrosia For Heads from earlier this year: