It’s been revealed by Chino of MMG that he allegedly knows the name of Game’s ghostwriters. It got messy, and he even outed one of them, telling everyone in the room on Twitter that a guy named Marcus Black wrote that really great diss track the Game fired off at Meek Mill.

Chino’s got dirt on you, doggie

I kno THE GAME ghost writer btw he from Chicago he ran wit some good Baltimore dudes ! 🐸☕️

— Chino_mmg (@ChinoMmg) September 19, 2016

Can someone tell the game stop it . . . It's public an it's always been in the streets ain't no telling over here wit the chasers homie !

— Chino_mmg (@ChinoMmg) September 20, 2016

Btw "Marcus black" wrote that . . . Time to expose ya 👻 writer ! #oooooouuuuuuu

— Chino_mmg (@ChinoMmg) September 20, 2016

That's a fact !

— Chino_mmg (@ChinoMmg) September 20, 2016

Marcus Black is a talented emcee, by the way.

But is something like that even “dirt” anymore?

But is it really true? Chino’s got some skin in the game with Meek being from his camp and all. Plus, who cares? Nowadays, everyone’s got a ghostwriter or 50. Wasn’t it Meek who exposed Drake last year (with an assist from Funkmaster Flex) for having Quentin Miller write a few tracks on If You’re Reading This Its Too Late? Didn’t Funk waste all our collective time dropping bomb after bomb only to reveal another voice rapping “running through the six with my woes?” This goes up even further on the inception scale if you consider that Rick Ross is literally a ghost-person. Let us remember 50 Cent’s Officer Ricky character forever and ever. What does this all mean? That rap is theatre? It’s part performance, no doubt, and whether you blame the internet for being the catalyst of all this or not, the cat is out of the bag.

Andre 3000 is mad, too

3 Stacks commented on Frank Ocean’s “Solo (Reprise)” as much. “After 20 years in / I’m so naive / I was under the impression / That everyone wrote they own verses / It’s comin’ back different, and, yeah, that shit hurts me / I’m hummin’ and whistlin’ to those not deserving / I’ve stumbled and lived every word / Was I working just way too hard?” He’s got a right to be upset, right? One-half of the greatest duo to ever rock a mic and he wrote every single word! But he also wasn’t hustling in the internet era where not giving us a song for over a week is blasphemy.

The farce

The ridiculous part of this whole deal is that Meek Mill, too, allegedly had a ghostwriter! That guy’s name is Louie V. Gutta, and Gucci Mane randomly brought him up last year because Gucci Mane is a warrior for fairness in the rap game.

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But really…what does this all mean?

Ghostwriter claims are our scarlet letters. We put them on the chests of these artists we adore, who entertain us, and they fall off them as quickly as we pin them. It’s 2016, and while I acknowledge that the rap-purity side of me isn’t happy with these claims, I’m not so old that I can’t recognize that artists need help. The expectations are huge and the money is scarce. Now, with your entire career on the line with each track, getting help is the natural thing to do. What it does do, is make claims of superiority more dubious. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s also a good thing Russell Simmons has reportedly worked out a truce between Meek and Game. Either way, regardless of which way of the argument you’re on, we’re all seemingly rethinking how we need to view our favorite rappers.

Louis V. Gutta

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