which nas verses werent written by him from 1994-2004?

i dont count his recent work since hes in the twilight of his career

I take him and other people's word for it when it comes to drake's pen

"I'm not going have someone write the timestamp records for me" - Drake

"Thankfully melodies and R&B come easy to me" - Drake

"He's one of the greatest writers I've ever seen" - James Fauntleroy

"He's the greatest writer I've ever seen" - 40

and I believe them. I obviously have no way of knowing this for sure, it surely seems like the traditional stuff comes to him pretty easily.

All of the 'reference tracks' and 'ideas' follow a very similar pattern to me.

Nevertheless, the point I'm making is that...if Drake is a writer himself...then what do we even make of him occasionally working with other writers? It's a fruitless and pointless talking point. It would make sense if he actually wasn't writing his raps or something but that's not the case. He wrote the Harlow verse in like, 10 minutes. His pen has been vouched for by everyone.

I just think Drake has the skillset and ambition that supersedes his peers, and that ambitions lends itself to sometimes working with other writers. Like, you can't drop every year, dip your toes into every genre, and come up with every line, hook, verse, and idea so him working with writers on occasion makes total sense to me in hindsight.

It just depends on what your goals are.

In a traditional sense, yes rappers verses are supposed to 'always' be written by them.

But Drake isn't a traditional rapper. He's dropping every year across multiple genres and essentially has dropped every year since 2009.
No one man is going to keep the public interested in his raps if he is the sole source material for his raps. Thus you get a Yatchy on Jumbotron, or the QM stuff.

Again, it's not about whether or not drake can write his raps it's about whether or not this feature verse, or this tape that I'm doing, will put me inside of the clubs for the next 6 months to a year and when you've been doing it since 2006(!), idk it makes sense that at some point you'd want other cooks in the room.

There has arguably never been a rapper that's maintained peak relevancy for as long as Drake has and so, EYE personally can't view him through a traditional rapper lens because traditionally speaking, his career is supposed to be over by now, not thriving and IMO you're just not going to do that w/o a level of assistance.

Now if that disqualifies drake from certain lists, understandable.

I respect this response brother and i dont necessarily have an issue with Drake using ghost writers to make hits. it happens all over the music industry

My only issue stems from the people, including Drake, that claim hes in the greatest rapper/mc category (which youve already addressed-respectfully). imo that hierarchy is reserved for rappers that have actually crafted their greatest verses themselves.

Ill gladly concede that hes one of the greatest artists ever bc at the end of the day all of his hits are chosen and greenlit by him.

He doesn't use ghostwriters though. Ghostwriting doesn't exist when it comes to Drake. They are always credited. That's how you know that he's carried his own weight with his pen countless of times throughout his career.

And like I personally feel like Drake has done enough with his Pen, solely to be in those discussions as far as the greatest MC category. But if it's 'no you have to have written every bar from every verse in your catalogue that extends 20 years and counting' then he's in that category that you mentioned.

But again, if him working with Yatchy on Jumbotron or cash Cobain on calling for you dismisses his own raps on Omertà / Two Birds One Stone / 5 Am / Champagne Poetry / 4Pm in Calabasas / Look What You've Done, etc. then I mean...I guess.

My entire point was just that TO ME, just because he's worked other writers on records doesn't mean he's not an elite, 5 star MC. We're not talking about someone who can't and hasn't barred up with the best of them.

You also bring up a good point about songs being chosen and greenlit by him. I say this all the time from experience: That is a talent. Plenty of artists would have heard Elkan's beat on Nokia and passed on it, not hearing the potential in it.

y’all still writing paragraphs about drake man

Drake doesn't use "ghostwriters." Y'all have to stop saying that. He uses co-writers. There's a difference. We're always aware when someone co-writes a piece of his music. It's never been something he's ever gone out of his way to hide or be deceitful about.

You're free to feel that Drake doesn't deserve to be called the greatest because he's had some of his songs co-written by other people but I also think most people who share this viewpoint would be shocked at how widespread and normalized this practice is in the music industry and yes, that included the rap world.

Drake is not the first and he won't be the last mainstream rap artist to employ the use of co-writers in some capacity. This is something that's been happening for as long as rap itself has been a thing.

For a lot of people, they justify it with Drake because as far as we know, he remains the only cook in the kitchen when it comes to his most lyrical rap songs, he has a long history of he himself writing for other artists and all the reference tracks we've ever gotten of other people writing for him were either for R&B/Pop songs or rap songs that had cadences that varied drastically from things he'd usually do or hook/chorus ideas he's take and rework.

Again, it's okay if you think stuff like this being done by an MC is forbidden but every mainstream MC has engaged in stuff like this at one point or the other. It's just the name of the game and how these incredible songs get made most of the time: it's almost always done by committee, but then again, I guess I can't blame the rap fan who still wants to hold on tightly to the idea of their favorite rappers alone in a dark room scribbling rhymes on a notepad and that rapper becoming a famous and successful mainstream act and still making every single song that way lol.

Elkan's manager.

W Elkan🔥🔥🔥

because the internet

I can't even imagine how to make music if I was Drake.

Every step of the process gets disected or predicted/critiqued. This is almost on some George RR Martin s***.

Respect to all creatives out here.