In an interview with Shannon Sharpe on the Club Shay Shay podcast, LL Cool J addressed those rumors that 50 Cent ghostwrote for him.
At around the 28-minute mark of the episode, which can be seen above, Sharpe asked the rapper and actor if he writes or freestyles when he records music. "I write, I write my songs," he said, to which Sharpe asked, "Have you ever had a ghostwriter?"
LL Cool J immediately shut down the speculation that he's used a ghostwriter in the past.
"No, I've collaborated with people on courses, on different things, but all of these songs that I'm thinking of... Come on, bro. I don't even know where people–like, that's a very interesting thing," said LL COOL J.
Sharpe said that he heard from people that 50 Cent wrote his 2002 track "Paradise," on which he's a credited songwriter. "50 Cent wrote the chorus, bro," said LL Cool J, who briefly sang a portion of Amerie's chorus on the track. "We've been through this before, acting like the Ls can't bag 'em no more, he ain't write that shit," he continued. "People be tripping. But, you know, that's a big compliment for me. When you get to the point where you've been doing it so long, and you're so prolific, that they look like, 'Somebody else shot the basketball! LeBron didn't shoot that shit! That was fucking KD. KD really shot that shit.'
Following that, Sharpe asked LL Cool J why ghostwriting is frowned upon so much in the hip-hop community. "Well because as an MC you're supposed to write your stuff together, you are," he said. "It's different, like, if you get in a studio. Let's say you're working with an artist and we write a song together and I'm collaborating with somebody on something, that would be different from somebody writing my rhymes, writing my verses, writing out my lyrics. Because then you're not a real MC. You're not."
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He compared the use of ghostwriters to being more akin to a "pop act" than a hip-hop artist. "Collaborating with somebody and sitting there and y'all coming up with lines together, that's one way of doing it, and you can do that and play around with some songs and mess around," he said. "But when it comes to doing 'Mama Said Knock You Out...' It's funny to me because, people just be wanting like... Do I have to literally sit here right now and write a rhyme for people to–like, what we need to do?"
Check out the full interview up top.
