Would it Matter if Drake Ghostwrote His Lyrics? Draining the Energy From Meek Mill's Tweets

Let July 21, 2015 go down in history as one of the craziest days in the history of Rap Twitter. In addition to the Nicki Minaj-Taylor Swift VMAs conflict, Nicki's boyfriend Meek Mill came after Drake for allegedly not writing his own verses. Let's run through the accusatory tweets, applying the Talmudic readings appropriate for rappers airing their grievances on public social media fora:

Stop comparing drake to me too.... He don't write his own raps! That's why he ain't tweet my album because we found out! 😁

-- Meek Mill (@MeekMill) July 22, 2015

Was anyone comparing Drake to Meek Mill? Serious question -- Meek put up surprisingly good numbers for his latest album, which made it to the top of the charts, but Drake is one of the biggest artists on the planet. (Note that Meek is probably elevating his own stature here by punching up.)

The "we" in this tweet likely refers to Nicki, who, in addition to her own Twitter story, has a very complicated relationship with Drake, which likely influenced one of the other Meek tweets:
 

I asked her about how she did that with a boyfriend that was b4 me! Lol RT @rachelrivera: #nuffsaid@MeekMill@Drakepic.twitter.com/yDldm4Z7hs

-- Meek Mill (@MeekMill) July 22, 2015

Then, Meek apparently outs Drake's ghostwriter as Quentin Miller:

Quentin miller

-- Meek Mill (@MeekMill) July 22, 2015

But as rapper (and friend of the magazine) OG Maco pointed out, Miller has songwriting credits on the album, which would make it difficult to consider him a ghostwriter working in secret (the way most of these arrangements work).Ghostwriting in hip-hop has a crazy long history (including a notable dust-up involving Nicki herself), with a vast array of approaches to the ethics and importance of writing one's own lyrics.

There are lots of good questions here. For example: If someone admits they don't write their lyrics, but are more curatorial, do they still deserve credit? What kind? Why don't we give sufficient credit to producers who explicitly craft beats for these tracks, contributing in an arguably more important fashion to the overall sound than the rapping itself?

More specifically, would it really matter if Drake ghostwrote his lyrics? Maybe! Some of his recent output is more generic lyrically, more similar to commonly accepted ghostwritten tracks, while others (and much of his broader appeal) bank hard on the personal touch, suggesting a level of intimacy to the Drizzy experience that would be lost if everyone knew he wasn't actually penning the words. It might be one of the few things that could plausibly hurt his appeal.

All of these are legitimately interesting questions -- about art and hip-hop in general, and Drake in particular as one of the most popular artists alive -- that are, obviously, best addressed in Twitter beef.

I pray the real live forever and all the fake get exposed! 🙏

-- Meek Mill (@MeekMill) July 22, 2015

Okay, this one is actually a pretty sick burn.