From my recent reading of posts here about ghostwriting...and alot of myths/rumors people trying to pass off as fact here...I figured it's time to start up a real official convo about ghostwriting in hip-hop, and expose who uses writers.
Ghostwriting has been and is part of the business that often gets a negative connotation. It's a structured phase that whether you need one or not is apart of any 'artist development' process at a major label. Like someone had mentioned, unless you have worked with (or at) some capacity in the music business; you're not exposed to the real definition of ghostwriting; and you'll always have a bad vision of it. The difference in those days was these people were writers, not rappers, and fortunately always stayed unknown. Nowadays with more money involved, writers actually wanting publishing, etc-etc...the business of writing has gotten messy.
Do I condone ghostwriting? Not entirely, because (myself being a producer/rapper) I write my own lyrics, hooks, and notes to music...but it's apart of the business that always opportunities for others - so I can at least respect it.
It's always a double-edged sword...some of your favorite rappers have ghostwrote for people; while some of these 'ghostwriters' have allowed others to ghostwrite for them for 'creative brainstorm' purposes and to give up-and-comers opportunities. The best example is Biggie - he had the total package (voice, flow, persona, delivery, freestyling, etc) - but little known was that he publicly OFFERED opportunities for new rappers (Mase, Camron, D-Dot, Jadakiss, Charli Baltimore, etc) to write for him either in exchange for deals, or label opportunities. Did he really need it? - NO. Was it a gester that helped start some of these rappers careers? - YES. Did Biggie ever lose any of his popularity for giving 'opportunities'? - NO.
One of the most infamous stories was how Mase got discovered, which Diddy has discussed many times. Mase was at a music conference in ATL, in search of 'only' Jermaine Dupri to give him his demo, with a young Diddy & BIG only in attendance to network. While JD was nearly a no-show, Diddy was able to beg a listen to Mase's demo. After liking some of it...after the conference - Diddy and BIG put Mase to the test to 'freestyle' a verse NOT on the demo. What he spit impressed them so much, they later wanted him to use it as a verse as a feature on 112's first single "Only You". Historically, after praising him, and exchanging contact info -- Biggie & Diddy offered him an opportunity. They gave him 3 days to write a verse for Biggie for 112's "Only You". If it was hot enough for Biggie to record, Mase would get signed. It was, and he was signed.
Conclusively, ghostwriting is apart of the business that is just as important as production and marketing. I had helped write an article on 'ghostwriting' for New Times Magazine (down here in South Florida) a few years back --- so I have tons of more stories & situations. For those interested, please feel free to ask aight.
PS --- I still have my credit research I used in my input for the magazine article...I'll post that up in the next post -- so yall can actually see some of the 'CREDITED' ghostwriting done in hip-hop.
alot of this shyt is 
that shyt got mase written all over it
