opens up for the first time about the claims that he does not write his own lyrics

Drake has spoken directly for the first time about the accusations this summer that he uses ghostwriters for his raps. He accepted the suggestion from Funkmaster Flex, a DJ on New York’s Hot 97 radio station, that he had used reference raps, but defended the practice.

“I need, sometimes, individuals to spark an idea so that I can take off running,” he told Fader. “I don’t mind that. And those recordings – they are what they are. And you can use your own judgment on what they mean to you.”

He added: “It’s just, music at times can be a collaborative process, you know? Who came up with this, who came up with that – for me, it’s like, I know that it takes me to execute every single thing that I’ve done up until this point. And I’m not ashamed.”

Drake said he had been surprised that no rappers had responded to his own musical answers to the accusations, made by Funkmaster Flex and the rapper Meek Mill. In the days after being charged with ghostwriting, he released the tracks Charged up and Back to Back, in which he faced down his accusers, but no one offered a comeback.

“This is a discussion about music, and no one’s putting forth any music?” he said. “You guys are gonna leave this for me to do? This is how you want to play it? You guys didn’t think this through at all – nobody? You guys have high-ranking members watching over you. Nobody told you that this was a bad idea, to engage in this and not have something? You’re gonna engage in a conversation about writing music, and delivering music, with me? And not have anything to put forth on the table?”

He said he felt “there was no strategy on the opposite end”, which he didn’t understand. His decision to release Back to Back, he said, was to swamp his accusers: “This has to literally become the song that people want to hear every single night, and it’s gonna be tough to exist during this summer when everybody wants to hear [this] song that isn’t necessarily in [his accusers’] favour.”

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