(AllHipHop News) Meek Mill outing Drake for not fully writing his verse on “R.I.C.O.” pushed the topic of ghostwriting into the public sphere in a major way this year. Meek’s Maybach Music Group boss Rick Ross will be adding to the conversation when his upcoming album Black Market hits stores on December 4.
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Ross told Time:
I had a lot of time to just sit by myself, so I had a lot more things I wanted to address. That’s what I did on this LP. I spoke on different things. One of them goes by the name of “Ghostwriter.” I finally wrote a record telling the way it feels for me to be a ghostwriter, and not only a ghostwriter, but one of the biggest in the rap game. Because of my own personal success I’ve always been able to keep that in the shadows. On this record, I just felt it was so current. It was needed.
The Miami native was then asked for his opinion on whether using a ghostwriter hurts an artist’s authenticity. He replied:
When you’re an artist where maybe the focus is really the talent and the different things you bring to the game, I believe it’s more understandable. Someone who may have another vision or just ideas that are priceless versus someone who’s like, “I’m basing my entire career off the words I’m finna tell you right now over this 30-second period.” I’m not speaking to anybody in particular, but let’s say for instance if you was DMX and had a ghostwriter, it’d maybe change the [perception] versus if you was will.i.am. I think that’s more about the music, the records.
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