This episode was written and produced by Andrew Anderson.

Many of today’s biggest songs are written and produced by people whose names don’t appear anywhere in the credits. They’re called ghostwriters and ghost producers, and they’re a huge part of the music industry. So what’s it like to watch your song become a hit when you can’t legally talk about it? And how do you get in the mindset of a legendary rap star, in order to write verses for them? Featuring rapper and ghost songwriter Skyzoo and producer Dame Taylor.

MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE

Alabaster Jar (Instrumental) by Uzuhan
rainy day loop by Sundreamer
Tough Guy (Instrumental) by Uzuhan
Don't Mind Me (Instrumental) by Roy Tosh
dust settles by HOPE MONA
Let's Get Filthy (Instrumental) by Lady Bri
Along The Yarra by Stan Forebee
golden gates (Instrumental) by WEI
Imposters (Instrumental) by S.O.
Main Event (Instrumental) by Tyrone Briggs
Worth The Weight (No Oohs & Ahhs) by UTAH
Monte Cristo (Instrumental) by Uzuhan
GOLD SWEAT (No Vocal Samples) - Instrumental by jacuzzi jefferson
Slow Emotion by indoorcat
Make Believe by junior state
Sherm Stick by JHAREE

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View Transcript ▶︎

[music in]

You’re listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz.

It’s a well known fact that a lot of popular musicians don’t write their own songs. Instead, many of these hits are written by professional songwriters. And while most people don’t know the names of these songwriters, they’re still famous within the industry. And of course, you can find their names listed in the credits of the songs they write. But that’s not always how it works. There are some songwriters who never get any credit.

Andrew: They're called ghostwriters and ghost producers. And they're a huge part of the music business.

That’s Twenty Thousand Hertz producer Andrew Anderson.

Andrew: They're the people behind a lot of the most popular music in the world. They write songs for famous singers, rappers, producers, and DJs, but you won't find their names written anywhere in the credits. And this happens in almost every genre.

[music out]

[music in]

Andrew: The term ghostwriter comes from literature. The most famous kind of ghostwriting is probably the celebrity autobiography. For a lot of those, a celebrity will hire a writer to interview them extensively. The writer will then use those interviews as the basis of the celebrity's book.

Andrew: In the world of music, the term ghostwriter didn't start getting used until the 1950s, but the concept has been around basically forever. Some people consider Mozart the first ghostwriter. That's because he would write music for his wealthy patrons and they would pretend they wrote it themselves.

Andrew: One of his patrons, Count Franz von Walsegg, wanted to pretend he wrote a piece in tribute to his late wife. Mozart himself then died before completing the Requiem, although two of his students actually finished it and delivered it to the count a few years later. Here's that finished piece.

[music clip: Requiem in D Minor]

Andrew: For a time, The Count was able to claim credit for the Requiem. But today, it's known as a Mozart composition.

[music clip continued: Requiem in D Minor]

Andrew: Throughout the centuries, ghost songwriting has been common across genres. For instance, when legendary country singer Hank Williams was first starting out, he would often sell lyrics and song ideas to other artists. They would then get to pretend that they wrote the tune entirely by themselves.

Andrew: Later on when Williams was a huge star, he supposedly did the same thing, but in reverse. Many music historians believe that several of his hits were at least partially written by other songwriters. For example, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" was allegedly written by songwriter Paul Gilley.

[music clip: "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry”]

Andrew: Ghost songwriting is just as popular today as it was in the past. You could even say that modern pop music wouldn't exist without ghostwriters. That's especially true in rap.

[music in]

Skyzoo: It's common, it's been common since the beginning.

Andrew: That's Gregory Skyler Taylor, who's better known by his stage name Skyzoo.

Skyzoo: I'm a rapper, MC, lyricist, songwriter, and ghostwriter from Brooklyn, New York. And I've been doing such forever, it seems like.

Normally, this is the point where we’d play some of the famous songs that Skyzoo has ghostwritten. But because he’s a ghostwriter he’s legally not allowed to tell us what he worked on. But it's safe to assume these are household names that you've definitely heard of.

Skyzoo: People would just have to take my word for it.

Andrew: Skyzoo's been in the business for a long time. And he was just nine years old when he first started writing songs.

Skyzoo: I want to say 1991, 1992…

Andrew: That period has come to be known as the Golden Age of hip hop, with bands like De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and The Beastie Boys all releasing critically acclaimed records.

Skyzoo: You couldn't get away from it. You didn't want to get away from it. You know, it was perfect.

Andrew: But actually it was a much younger artist that got Skyzoo interested in writing.

Skyzoo: It was an artist by the name of Chi-Ali, who, I think he was 14 or 15 at the time. And he was one of the "Kiddy Rappers," quote, unquote. But he was the dopest one to me. And he had this maturity to him.

[music clip: Chi Ali - "Ain't Nothing But a Number”]

Skyzoo: When I heard him, I said, "Man, that's it." And I started rapping.

Andrew: Skyzoo started writing songs on the bus to school, in class, and when he was out with his friends.

Skyzoo: I just wanted to rap and write and rap and write and record and get my name out.

Skyzoo: It's like if you pick up a ball for the first time, you're going to play ball for 10, 15 years before you get to the NBA. You're going to really hone your skills and hone in on your craft and really develop. And that's what those years were.

Andrew: Even back then, Sky knew that some rappers almost never wrote their own verses. One rapper who's well-known for using ghostwriters is Puff Daddy. Puff even referenced this in his track, "Bad Boy For Life."

[music clip: Puff Daddy - Bad Boy for Life - "Don't worry if I write rhymes, I write checks…"]

Andrew: When Sky would hear certain songs from these artists, he couldn't help but think that he could've done better.

Skyzoo: You'd hear them and you'd be like, "Oh, who wrote that, man? I could've killed that. You know, like that, that was my nature. Even in high school, that was my nature. You know, like I would hear certain people and be like, "Man, I could have killed that for them, man.

Skyzoo: Why they hollered at whoever that was who wrote that? I could have did way better than that." And this is me and like the 11th grade, you know, so moving forward, I knew it was another lane that I could possibly get into.

[music in]

Andrew: By the time he was in his early twenties, all that hard work was starting to pay off.

Skyzoo: The first time I started really making some kind of money from it. And it turned into a real business was like 2005, 2006.

Skyzoo: I really, really put the work in and what we call, "beat the street." I really beat the street back then. And it turned into, years later, you know, me being able to get where I got.

Sky released his first album Cloud 9 in 2006. Here’s a track from it called Way to Go.

[music out]

[music clip: Skyzoo and the 9th Wonder - Way To Go]

Andrew: After that, Skyzoo's career as a performer took off with tours, TV, appearances, and a string of albums. But he still liked the idea of ghostwriting, and all of that solo success was actually getting in the way.

[music in]

Skyzoo: The mistake I made was I was meeting people and finding out that they were ghostwriters and I was linking with them and saying, "Yo man, next time when you are in the studio with so-and-so, let me know," and they'd be like, "Yeah yeah yeah, no doubt. Nah, for sure. No doubt." And I would never get that phone call.

Skyzoo: I had to sit back and say to myself, "Man, you're buggin. They're not going to bring you in to help write when they're already writing and now they have to split publishing with you and split points and split money."

Points are royalty percentages.

Skyzoo: "They're not going to do that." So it's kinda like if you have a plate full of food and you're trying to reach on somebody else's plate and get a little more, and they're like, "Man, this is all the food I got."

Andrew: Skyzoo is a rare example of someone who started as a successful solo artist before getting into ghostwriting. But for most artists, it doesn't work that way.

Skyzoo: A lot of ghostwriters are people who didn't make it as an artist.

Skyzoo: The problem with some people is being an artist is more than just the talent in the booth. So some of it is you may not have the best look, your image may not be right. Your actual voice that you rap with may not be that great. But your pen is crazy. You know, you're writing crazy. You may be a little bit more of an introvert. You may not want to be on stage and going on tour and being around 5, 10,000 fans every night. You may not want that, you may not be able to handle that, you have anxiety, whatever it may be.

Skyzoo: There's a lot of different things that come into being an artist.

[music out]

Andrew: In the end Skyzoo's gateway to the world of ghostwriting came through the producer Illmind, who has produced tracks for 50 Cent, Drake, and Nicki Minaj.

Andrew: At the time, Illmind was doing a lot of work in Los Angeles.

Skyzoo: He said, "Man, you got to come out. Next time I go over there, you got to come with me, man. ‘Cause they need writers."

Skyzoo: So a month later, we on a flight together. He brought me in the room and he was making beats. And while he was making beats, I was writing. I'm just writing to everything, but I'm writing it in the voice and from the perspective of the person we went out there to see.

Skyzoo can’t say the name of the person he was writing for without getting into legal trouble. But they are really famous. After he'd finished the lyrics, Skyzoo recorded a demo, with his own rapping on it.

Skyzoo: So that person comes in the room and Illmind just press play. [sfx: music clip in] And he goes, "Yo, who's that?" And Illmind points at me. He goes, "Yo, this is my man Skyzoo from Brooklyn.”

Skyzoo: He just said, "Yo, this is crazy. You, you just did this? This is crazy." I said, "Yeah, I just did it". "Yo, let me hear it again. Let me hear it again."

[sfx: rewind + music clip in]

Skyzoo: He hands me his phone. He goes, “Yo, give me your phone number. I need your number right now.” So boom. We switched numbers.

Skyzoo: It turned into a very dope trip that led to like 10 more trips with this person going to their studio, going to their space.

[music in]

Andrew: After that ghostwriting became a big part of Skyzoo's life.

Skyzoo: It just snowballed, man. I mean, I was bouncing around from session to session with different artists and studio to studio and "Okay, I'm at this studio for eight hours. I'm gonna go get something to eat. Then I'm gonna go over to this studio for four hours and I'm gonna come back to the hotel and take a nap and a shower.

Skyzoo: Then I'm gonna go back to the other studio." Like it was crazy.

[music out]

Andrew: Even though Skyzoo has had a lot of success as a ghostwriter, he says it's still a controversial topic in hip hop.

Skyzoo: It's common, but it's taboo.

Andrew: In the pop and RnB worlds, people are used to the idea that a lot of famous singers don't write their own songs.

Skyzoo: Let's say you got an artist like Mary J Blige or Usher or Mariah Carey.

Skyzoo: It's about their voice. It's about the octaves that they can hit and their range. [music clip: Mariah Carey singing] It's about the emotion they draw out. And artists like Usher, it's about him dancing, as well as his singing. [music clip: Usher singing] It's the whole package. In hip hop, we don't sing, we don't dance. It's literally only about what you're saying. So then people go, "Dang, if it's only about what you're saying, and you're not even writing what you're saying, then what are you here for?"

Skyzoo: So that's why it became taboo.

[music in]

Andrew: Skyzoo says that a lot of people don't really understand this side of his work.

Skyzoo: A lot of people think ghostwriting is writing lyrics on a piece of paper and just handing them over to somebody. And it's not that at all, because the way I read it and the way you read it are two totally different things. And hip hop, just like singing R&B and pop and everything else.

Skyzoo: It's about what you're saying, but it's also about the delivery. I may emphasize these words. I may put some melody on this word. But if I just hand you the lyrics on a piece of paper, you don't know the cadence, you don't know the melody. You don't know the flow.

Andrew: So each time Skyzoo works as a ghostwriter, he records what is known as a reference track, which is basically a demo.

Skyzoo: I'll write the song, then I'll go in the studio and I'll record the song to the beat that you're going to use and everything. And I'll even do my best to imitate your voice so that you really, really get the full picture.

Skyzoo: The artist then listens to the song over and over and over for a little while. It's kind of like when you listen to the radio and you hear a song so much that, you know it. You know the pocket, you get the flow, you get the delivery. And then you go in and rerecord it, and the world hears what you've recorded. And that's the way ghostwriting works.

These reference tracks are never meant to be released, but sometimes they get leaked. Artists like Drake, Lil’ Kim and Kanye West have all had their top secret reference tracks put online for anyone to hear.

That’s coming up, after the break.

[music out]

MIDROLL

[music in]

In the music industry, a ghostwriter is someone who writes a song for another artist without any public credit. Some of the biggest names in pop music use ghostwriters. Puff Daddy, Nicki Minaj and Dr. Dre have all used them at one time or another.

[music out]

When a ghostwriter writes a song, they’ll record what’s called a reference track. It’s basically a guide that lets the artist know how they should perform it. The general public are never meant to hear these reference tracks. But sometimes they get leaked, and we get to hear the ghostwriters at work.

Andrew: For example, here's Drake's hit "Legend."

[music clip: Legend by Drake]

Andrew: And here's the reference track, which was created by Canadian rapper Party Next Door.

[music clip: Legend reference track]

Andrew: Another famous one is "Jesus Walks" by Kanye West.

[music clip: Jesus Walks by Kanye West]

Andrew: Here's the reference track from rapper Rhymefest.

[Music clip: Jesus Walks reference track]

Reference tracks can give a real insight into the songwriting process.

Skyzoo: Look at, let's say Lil' Kim "Queen B" and I'm editing the B for the show, keeping it clean.

[music clip: Queen B by Lil’ Kim]

Skyzoo: Biggie wrote that. And everybody knows Biggie wrote it because 1) Big was writing a lot of Kim's stuff back then and 2), the reference track leaked.

[music clip: Queen B reference track]

That was the cleanest section of the track we could play, but let's just say the lyrics include some stuff that you would never expect to hear coming out of a macho rapper like Biggie Smalls.

Skyzoo: Biggie's talking about stuff from a female perspective. You'll hear Biggie saying that stuff and you'll be like, "Wow, this is crazy!" Because he wrote it for her.

Skyzoo: It's not him being himself. He wrote it for her. So again, he's being an actor putting on a costume and doing this for that.

Andrew: Getting into the mindset of the person you're writing for is probably the most important skill that a ghostwriter can have.

[music in]

Skyzoo: A lot of times it starts with a conversation, especially if we're in the studio together.

Skyzoo: We're talking about how you grew up, who you are, what your life is like right now, what you're trying to convey with this song or this album, where you want to go, when you hear this beat, what does it make you think of?

Skyzoo: So getting in somebody's head, a lot of it is research and a lot of it is just having that conversation with them one-on-one.

Skyzoo: I may go in the studio with an artist and write something for them as a ghostwriter. And the things that they're talking about on the record, the things I'm writing for them are things that I would never say on my own record.

[music out]

[music in ]

Andrew: As for ghost producers, the way they work is slightly different.

Dame: Well first off, the term "Ghost Producer" is an outside term. You don't ever hear that term inside the industry.

Andrew: That's Dame Taylor. Dame has worked on tracks for the likes of Kanye, Pit Bull, Nelly and Ludacris. But you won't see his name credited on any of their songs.

Dame: You tell people you worked on these records and they don't believe you because your name's not on the credits.

Ghost producing is an even more hidden part of the music industry than ghost songwriting.

Dame: You don't talk about it. It's not something that goes around the industry at all. No one considers himself a ghost producer, but I would say the definition of a ghost producer is someone who is contributing to music productions, and he is not on the credits. A lot of people pretty much don't know who he is. He's kind of a person that doesn't exist in a sense. Hence the term ghost.

[music out]

Andrew: Like Skyzoo, Dame didn’t start out writing for other people. Right out of high school, he was already starting to make a name for himself as a producer.

[music in]

Dame: I had a manager and my manager was passing my music around to everybody in LA, ‘cause he worked for Universal Music. And once he started getting a hold of my music, everything just sped up and went crazy. Everybody in LA knew who I was.

Andrew: By that point, he was getting to work with some of the biggest names in the business.

Dame: I did a song for a Lil Wayne mixtape, which was pretty dope. And then I had produced a song for G-Unit, 50 Cent. That was pretty crazy because it was a long drawn out process. It took like a year.

[music out]

Here’s that G-Unit track, Party Ain’t Over.

[music clip: Party Ain't Over by G-Unit]

Andrew: Dame also produced a track for the Spanish rapper Tote King.

[music clip: Ahora Vivo de Esto by Tote King]

Dame: That was probably my coolest experience because it was so left field. It was so unexpected.

[music in]

Dame: This dude just hit me up on SoundClick. And he took one of my beats and he was like, "Yo, I want to buy this beat." I sold the beat to him. I didn't know who he was.

Dame: So he buys the beat. He hits me up about eight or nine months later and he's like, "Yo, I want to shoot a video to this beat."

Dame: And I'm like, "Yeah, whatever." You know, "Cool." Cause I'm still working with a bunch of rappers in LA. You know, a lot of rappers in LA are getting placements. They're getting deals. So some dude in Spain wants to shoot a video to my beat? I'm like, "Whatever."

Dame: So this dude puts this video out and it got a hundred thousand views and like, Then he goes on tour. He tours all of Europe. And the song that I produced is his main single. So this song is playing on the radio and all throughout Europe. He's touring all these fans are posting videos on YouTube and literally crowds of like thousands of people, 10,000 people are singing this song word for word. And my beat is playing in these stadiums.

Dame: So I started getting all these friend requests from all these people from Spain, like all of these little kids from Spain. And they're messaging me talking about, "I love your music." And one of the kids hit me up on Facebook and I asked him like, "Yo, how big is this guy?" And they described him as "The Kanye of Spain."

Dame: So seeing that, like, it just really opened my eyes to like how powerful music is and how big it is and how ignorant you can be to how big music is outside of LA, you know? So I would say that that was probably my best experience because it taught me so much, and it was just the impact that I didn't even expect.

[music out]

Andrew: After that, Dame thought he was on his way to becoming a famous producer. But then he got offered a job that changed the course of his career forever.

[music in]

Dame: My thought process was, "I'm gonna get professional studio time and I'm going to make beats and I'm gonna get placement." So I reached out to my guy, and I told him, I was like, "Bro, I got this $5,000. Can you get me like some discounted time at Paramount?”

Dame: And he was like, "Well, why would you want to do that? You're going to blow through that money pretty fast." So he said, "I got even better idea. I just started managing this guy named DJ Felli Fel. And instead of you spending your money on these recording studios, why don't you meet up with them and see if you can possibly engineer for him."

[music out]

Andrew: At the time DJ Felli Fel was considered one of the most exciting producers in the business. He made hit tracks with artists like Puff Daddy, Nelly, and T-Pain..

Here’s his biggest hit Get Buck In Here.

[music clip: Get Buck in Here by DJ Felli Fel]

Dame: And so I started working for this guy as an engineer, and then that turned into a three and a half year relationship where I started producing songs. And then those songs start to turn into pretty big songs. And that's how the journey of me producing music without getting credit started.

As a ghost producer for DJ Felli Fel, Dame worked with lots of famous rappers.

Dame: We did a song called "Can You Feel It?", which had T-Pain, Pit Bull, Sean Paul, Flo Rida. Fully produced that.

[music clip: Can You Feel It by DJ Felli Fel]

Dame: We did a song with Lloyd, E-40.

[music clip: Track Shoes by Lloyd]

Dame: Three Six Mafia, Littlejohn… Jim Jones, Sean Kingston… Nah, we were producing records for everybody man.

[music in]

Andrew: The main reason that ghost producers get hired is simple; time. A famous DJ who is constantly touring might not have enough time to come up with new music. Or if they're a producer that's really in demand, they might not have time to create every beat that they get asked to make. So they delegate the work to their ghost producers.

Andrew: The benefit for the ghost producer is that they get to work with someone with a big name, which means they can earn a lot more money than they would on their own.

Dame: If I'm an independent producer in LA and I can get a placement, you know maybe I can sell it for $10,000.

Andrew: On the other hand, if he produces for someone famous...

Dame: ...who's selling beats for 50,000, he'll say, "Yo, let me add something to this beat. We can sell it for 50 and I'll give you 20, I'll take 30. So instead, if you sell it on your own, you're going to get 10. But if I sell it, you'll get 20. And you'll also get a percentage or a cut, or we'll call you a drum programmer or something."

Dame: But ultimately that person that has the bigger name will be able to continue to push their name.

[music out]

Andrew: As for why ghost producing is kept secret, it's mostly about protecting the brand of the producer involved. And the more famous they are, the more carefully they want to control their image.

[music in]

Dame: If you at the top, Dr. Dre level, you can't go into a studio with those people, unless you sign the non-disclosure agreements to where you can't speak on it. You can't even have your phone in a session. They take your phone and stuff like that. And it's really just to keep things intact.

Dame: When it comes to like imaging, branding, marketing, public relations, a person's name is his everything. So if he is employing someone to keep his name relevant, then of course he doesn't want that to get out, because that's gonna affect his name, his brand, his image, his product.

[music out]

Andrew: But while the money is good, sometimes not getting credit for your work can take its toll.

[music in]

Dame: I never did music for accolades or for money. I did it for love. And so I was just a young, dumb kid that I was so happy to be in a situation with someone that I looked up to or someone that was doing big things that I would've did music for free.

Dame: I didn't realize I was in a ghost producer situation until after the fact.

Dame: When the situation is over, you look back and you don't have nothing to show for that time that you spent. When it's all done, you're like, "Yo, what did I do all that for?"

Andrew: But even though Dame has mixed feelings about it, he says he'd still do it again.

Dame: Looking back, I would go into that situation again. I would go and do it again 100%, because the term “ghost production” or being in that type of situation is not a bad thing.

Dame: It's just like having a nine to five job. If you work this amount of hours, then you get paid this amount of money, and you sign an agreement to do that.

Andrew: For Dame, it all comes down to how you're treated by the person that hired you.

Dame: Ghost production is a good opportunity if the person's taking care of you.

Dame: It really just depends on the integrity of the person that you're working for. It's just a part of the industry.

Ultimately, ghost songwriting and ghost producing are just two more ways of earning money, in an industry where it's notoriously difficult to make a living. Remember, an artist like Dr. Dre or Puff Daddy might seem like they're just one person. But in reality, they're an entire brand. The person we see on stage is the product of tons of behind the scenes work from managers, publicists, stylists, producers, ghostwriters, and lots of others. Their job is to help transform the person they work for into kind of a mythic figure… a larger than life persona that millions of people know and love. And if they’re treated fairly, it can work out well.

Skyzoo: Obviously I'm totally fine with ghostwriting because I benefit from ghostwriting. You know what I mean? So like, I'm totally fine with the idea of ghostwriting being a reality in hip hop, because it's done a lot for me and my career.

[music out]

[music in]

Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the sound design studios of Defacto Sound. Treat yourself to a little sonic candy by following Defacto Sound on Instagram.

This episode was written, produced, and reported by Andrew Anderson. With help from Sam Rinebold. It was story edited by Casey Emmerling. It was sound designed and mixed by Nick Spradlin.

Thanks again to our guests, Skyzoo and Dame Taylor. Dame also leads a music school called Monster Sessions, which has classes and camps about producing, songwriting, the music business and more. Check it out at monster sessions dot com.

On our feed, we have lots of other great shows about music and songwriting. A few good options would be the episodes Hidden Hitmakers, Progression Obsession, and Copyrights and Wrongs. So if you haven't heard those episodes, be sure to go check them out.

Thanks for listening.

[music out]