Ghostwriting in Hip Hop | DEHH 

i agree

Shadow J. Brown (f.k.a. Riot Van) bless the base god

He ghostwrote MMLP, Illmatic and All eyez on me too

homie behind all of outkast

+XxTheIKINGxX i was thinking the same thing XD

+XxTheIKINGxX i swore i wouldnt tell, but most of y'all sharin bars like you got the bottom bunk in a 2 man cell

+Ari Kechichian something's in the water

King Kendrick!

XxTheIKINGxX been goin on forever eazy e barely wrote his own shit

nobody cares about Will Smith an the gw cause he's an actor primarily now...if Will was still a rapper and actually rapped about something with substance it'd be a different story

Micah 703 exactly that’s the problem. they want to come for the goat when their not even great

He kind of is though.

@@lubmang5072 He isn’t. Drake has ghostwriters, has not one certified HipHop classic and is not that that caliber of MC anyway. Drake is the new Nelly, that’s the category. Pop with rap influences. Hov is a GOD MC. Aubrey is not even an MC.

@@ArmLegLegArmHead47 Nah fam Drake CLEARLY was more influenced by the Hovs, Phontes, Wayne’s of the rap world (HIS words NOT mine) than Nelly 🤣, Nelly never gave a shit about being considered a dope rapper and he literally has the same style on pretty much every song. Drake literally Started as a backpacker in rap for his for first two mixtapes (he’s even shown off notebooks of rhymes he wrote) and while he became a hybrid artist since so far gone he never lost that ability to be lyrical when it comes to the song. Nelly could NEVER make a song like 5am in Toronto, or Omerta, or 6pm in New york, or Dreams money can buy or Think Good thoughts or the Presentation as a few examples. Do I consider drake an emcee in the traditional sense? No. But does he have a pen game? Absolutely nobody ever said he didn’t aside from Meek who later retracted those statements cause he was high on percs

Couldn't have said it better

Chris Lockhart Not always. I listen to Rick Ross and Dr. Dre for their voices and I listen to Jay-Z and Gucci for their flows. Both have the same lyrics about bitches and money but I listen to them for something else besides that.

Why he kept saying ghostsinging? That shit didn't make any sense to me. Hahaha

what about boy or girl pop groups that have a rapper is ghost writing OK then?

Yeah but not everyone that can rap their ass off (as in, have a remarkable command of the voice inflections and flow) can put the poetry together from the ground up. Not every rapper is looked to for their lyrics; some of them, their voice and their flow is what people gravitate towards so it would be a waste for them to not be a rapper just because they can't write their own words.

BlackGirlFly the writer who "exposed" Nas was Dream Hampton. She has made up news for a long time and both stic.man and Jay Electronica both denied ghostwriting. It sounded more like Nas asked them in to collaborate. Usually big artist will ask other artist to check rhymes. Snoop use to do that with Tha Dogg Pound all the time.

True, ghostwriting for rappers is equivalent to lip singing for a singer.

Rappers still need to have a certain cadence, there's more to it than just reading the words.

Sam Alexander yep

@@jeanbeya6860 yeah but it's a lot easier to spit something somebody else wrote than it is to write your own bars. Heaps of people memorise verses and rap along to songs, that's the same thing.

true they're 2 different skill sets, but that being said delivery and voice still matters in rap imo.There's some rappers that I really enjoy because of their delivery and flow and how it sounds over how hard the bars actually are. PRime example for me is Young Jeezy. A lot of his next bars are easily guessed for me and he's not near as lyrical as T.I., but the way his says things makes it fire.

Man Fuck Young Thug!

J Cole sucks

+Joe Dirt lol young thug couldn't write IOU on a piece of paper.

Facts

+Kharmatos13 lol

Will pitt facts

The watcher 1 or 2

+BLaDEWaLKER33 true. if your a real MC you should write. but rappers delight the first hit hip hop song was partly ghostwritten.

+Nana Aforo So singers should write their stuff then

.

Chaos is a ladder. It would be nice...

So DR DRE should've never hopped on the mic?

I'll kill myself

I'll kill myself

No

***** no I said the guys on TMZ knew nothing of hip hop. look at what I comment on I know a lot about hip hop.

Craig G wrote Em's freestyles in 8 mile. No bullshit. Look it up.

i second this!

Julian Wyllie Not everyone can rap though. Rappers need charisma, good flow, and a good voice. I only take offense to someone having a ghostwriter when then say they are GOATs. If Jay and Nas had ghostwriters id be heartbroken, but if I found out J. Cole or Chance had ghostwritters I wouldnt care.

Burg Skeletal Jay and Nas def have ghostwriters, but J Cole and Chance don’t, that’s why you don’t care if they did

yeah if ANY rapper comes out "yo i'm dope I'm the best" Goat or not... if you have ghostwriters ..... you're a fake and i lose respect. If you're a rapper... you could be WACK...but still...write your own stuff

It's because Mcing is self expression. They aren't a band, aren't playing instruments, aren't just looked at for voice only and lyrics are the biggest key of an MC outside style and flow. The style, flow and voice are the instrument of the MC and lyrics are the key reason you do MC.

​@@NIGEL341Hilasd How can you claim Nas has Ghostwriters but Cole don't and where's your evidence of Jay and Nas having Ghostwriters

Daniel Ferreira actually he did, the whole disco, and 2 kanye albums

***** discography you ignorant fuck...

***** i'm dumb? you're so fucking ignorant that you can't understand simple sarcasm fool, i was joking, but you can't understand it cause you have a brain like a 5 year old

Daniel Ferreira Yeah he does. He wrote Till I collapse, Role MOdel, lose yourself, and the stan

Wouldn't be surprised

Yeah you're right, but what's a rapper with no delivery? What is a rapper that can't enunciate? What is a rapper that can't stay on beat? Eventually a rappers delivery has to count instrumentally too.

***** YOu're missing the point

I get the point. Rapping your own material is important and should be heavily considered, but it should all be important to be consider great. If you can't actually say what you wrote on a beat then you're no longer a rapper. I'm just saying the presentation is just as important as the material itself. That's in every profession. Tech n9ne has incredible delivery but what he writes about is boring. It prevents him from growing bigger. K - rino has great lyrics but his rapping is lame. Rick Ross sounds like he's struggling to breathe just to get his words out. People act like lyrics were always the focal point of rap and hip hop, yet when you look throughout its history, ghostwriting for good lyrics and grand presentation of bad lyrics have always been a staple in the genre. You're not more than a modern day street poet if you can't put your stuff forth in a manner people can enjoy. And you're nothing more than a vocal artist if you can rap rhymes but not write them. Its a fine line, but let's not pretend we can all put in the work to do what "vocal artists" and "street poets" do. Neither part is easy. But I'm not gonna knock someone if they have great delivery, just as long as they don't hide the fact that they are wrote for sometimes. The moment you hide it, the moment you are committing fraud.

Now a days the singers can't sing if I don't see the perform a acoustic .9times out of 10 they can't sing unless its in a studio these labels just sell us images

@@darrenbanks3979 great point and I agree but making your rap is more than half the art. In my opinion AZ has a extra smooth rapping. I have him in my top 5 rappers all time. If I found out that someone ghost wrote for him the smoothness wouldn't be enough to keep him with the best. It wouldn't even be enough for me to say he top 50 or 100.

Matt Pascal lmao

but he does...

Matt Pascal I hear Daz, Quick, and Warren G ghost produced some of it.

@@regirayquaza they're called co producer

He does bro.

No wonder why it's a great song!

+Lenny Hall DIdn't Rakim himself deny that in an interview?

dstxb he didn't really confirm or deny. I watched the video too, trust me, i did research on this lol

Strider-Ragnarok delivery? haha I don't really feel that way, just playing devil's advocate. but if you listen to Quentin Miller on a reference track and then Drake's delivery of that song, Drake's voice fits it better and it's nicer to hear. but I think that says more about Quentin's writing ability than any talent Drake has. Q just knows how to write for Drake's voice, and that makes him WAY more talented.

Strider-Ragnarok some people can write amazing 16's but can't actually rap for shit or have a voice for it someone like drake does that well

same here they need to do a 2 part

Eminem in a tough situation tho, he's like the whole thing of why white rappers can rap, so he has to keep it underground, prove he can have commercial success so people can't discredit him in a argument

Therron Rux yes he did write it BUT. The reason rhymefesf got writing credits from Kanye for being fair was Kanye’s first verse on Jesus walls was an old verse from rhymefest and Kanye took it. He wrote the rest.

Rhymefest wrote the first four bars of the first verse (you know what the midwest is, young and restless, snatch your necklace, jack your lexus) and Kanye built off of that. The second verse is all Kanye.

Update will smith wrote all of summertime

@@seankelly4594 you right

A fucking men. It's supposed to be an expression of the experience of the artist.

Eden Mugar I agree. Completely ghost writing is kind of a turn off. The only thing I'd say is that I hate when ppl mix it up with co-writing

jaidsalgado yeah it's not a crime to work on a song together that both will be on. Sometime you can struggle to find the right word and someone can suggest. But someone rapping someone else's bars is like reciting Shakespeare lol "to beee or not to beee" it's an act

Javid Bencosme everyone has confirmed that Nas wrote Untitled. When I listen to it, it's clear that Nas wrote it. Unless Jay Electronica and stic.man truly mastered his style.

martyc909 nah Jay was in the studio bouncing around ideas with Nas ..... He didn't write any lyrics . ..... Just helped brainstorm some concepts ......

Realnigga Turner no

***** Lets bro hug this out man

+bboyfan22 That's absolute genius...U just realized my favorite bands had singers who didn't always write the songs 👌

I just realized*

Where did you hear that and what did you here?

Either Royce or CyHi

Kai Young I completely agree with this. It's just a wave to hate on Drake.

I agree with you 100 percent. I was thinking the exact same thing, and while I was watching the video that's all I was thinking of. The whole ghostwriting situation to me has been blown out of proportion. I definitely believe that those songs you mentioned for on IYRTITL were co written by Quinton, just not in it's entirety. But I do believe that in regards to the reference tracks, they were more so to do with the cadences and the terminologies.They were far different from his previous projects, and not in a better way. I think that because this was such a big scandal and that most people that use social media in this day and age are most likely under the age of 21, and are unaware of ghostwriting and the severity behind it. They are also very unaware of the people mentioned in this video who were likely to have ghost writers. Personally I have been a Drake fan for years, however when the ghostwriting allegations came up I was more so annoyed with the fact that people were hyping up those mediocre bars that were potentially written by someone else, but not taking into account the work the man has put in for several years, and the fact that he is an established songwriter himself. I do believe that at this point in Drakes career its fine to get a bit of help seemingly because of the reasons Kev expressed in this video (Too busy). However, they have to be Pop/radio songs. I do think Drake writes just about everything and obviously his best and most personal songs like Too Much, Look What You've done, AM/PM series of songs, and much more. Not to mention songs of his love interests like The Motion, Days In The East, My Side. Anyway's I'm going off on a tangent here. But I really did appreciate you're comment because this was exactly my thoughts on this situation as well. I do not think it's fair that people are very selective to who they think is and isn't allowed to get some help because this is nothing relatively new in Hip Hop. I also believe that when you get as big as Drake, and have been raping for approximately a decade that you run into a writers block. It happens.

Disagree. Listen to "is this the end" by diddy ft twista. Rappers def have skill, and when they ghostwrite, there's a lot of style, charisma, talent, breath control, etc that cannot be transferred/copied while "reading" that writing.

nanotek812 Charisma and Breath control, really? I dont think those are skills or talent

You're right. When twista picked up the mic for the first time he just naturally rapped as fast as he does now and none of that took practice and it's probably been that way since he was old enough to talk, or even record his first record.

nanotek812 put the bigger picture here is rapping if you're a rapper

No

Clive Clivington Bruh! Right!