Do Rappers Write Their Own Lyrics Anymore?
Earlier this morning I came across a blog post from #Slang Editorial that was centered around artists writing their own rhymes and song. It seems as if some people are shocked at the truth that top tier rappers such as Nas and Jay-Z don’t write their own rhymes.
Honestly, with how the music business is today. Is it that much of a shock? Not to me. Nothing really surprises me much coming from the music industry nowadays.
This does make you wonder if some of your favorite rappers are as “good” and as smooth with the pen as they say they are. Or, they just have enough money to by themselves some of the best ghostwrites in the world and make themselves look that way.
Check out the original post below, written by @bgyrl4life for http://stlhiphop.ning.com
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I can’t believe cats are getting their panties all up in a bunch after the allegation surfaced that Nas doesn’t write his own rhymes. HELLO? I’m surprised anyone thought otherwise. “Real” left hip hop a loooooooooong time ago when corporate interests took over and “keeping it real” was replaced by “keeping it corporate”. Really… the biggest player in the game is a former corrections officer who stole a real life (and still very much alive) drug dealer’s identity. Somma y’all worse than my neph who still thinks wrestling is real.
This article by the BBC was published in 2008… and trust you ain’t gonna see this in The Source or XXL
Is hip-hop haunted by ghostwriters?
Jay-Z told Vibe magazine in an interview that he is “paid a lot of money to not tell you who [he] writes for”.
In another piece on BBC radio….
[LISTEN] http://www.bbc.co.uk/1xtra/realmedia/tx/ghostwriting.ram
Ghostwriters could be getting more common in hip hop – it’s being claimed up to 40% of US tracks aren’t written by the rappers spitting them http://www.bbc.co.uk/1xtra/tx/ghostwriting.shtml
So what your fav rapper spits hard the lyrics some other rapper wrote for him… It’s all entertainment.
- B
“I’m out spoken, my language is broken into a slang,
but that’s just a dialect that I select when I hang”
I GOT IT MADE, Special Ed
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My comments to this post were:
I agree with David Morris. I think overall “Mainstream” hip hop has declined lyrically. But, then again look at the people that listen to it. Lets be honest… 80% of the people aren’t that intelligent themselves. But, on the other hand people have been writing other people’s songs since the beginning of music as we know it just about. Ghostwritting happens in just about every music genre it’s not just rap. It’s R&B, Rock, Blues, Gospel, Techno, and any other thing you can think of.
Even Presidents have had people ghostwrite their speeches. It happens everywhere. Some people are just better at writing and coming up with concepts while some are better at the performing aspects.
Hey, if I was a good enough songwriter I’d shop my songs around too. Ghostwriters make bank off of that. Look at Lionel Richie, Mariah Carey, Dolly Parton (the famous country singer that wrote Whitney Houston’s hit single “Always Love You”)… these people are making bank writing songs while the artists that are performing them struggle to make record sales and sell out shows.
From the Dolly Parton example you can see its not all rap. Even the great Whitney Houston had a ghost writer. This is why I don’t see why it’s such a surprise to people.
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