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For those of you that follow sports in any capacity, you are no doubt aware that Barry Bonds is closing in on Babe Ruth's home record (714) and is on pace to break the alltime record set by Hank Aaron in the next two years or so, barring injury or retirement. Outside of San Francisco, this milestone is being received with a fair amount of negativity due to the rumors and accusations of drug use that has allegedly helped Bonds maintain a record-setting pace. My personal opinion? Dude is on the juice. I used to be a big fan of Bonds back in the day (around '96), despite his deserved reputation as the biggest jerk in baseball. Bonds doesn't sign autographs for fans, answer questions from the media or even talk to his teammates, but that didn't matter to me, because he had the sweetest swing I have ever seen.

Then 1998 rolled around, and Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa started knocking balls out the park like it was whiffleball. It wasn't long after this that Bonds began to change, no doubt in response to those two. His head started to grow (though it still wasn't big enough to hold his ego in check) and the graceful athleticism was replaced by a brutish strength that made it look like he was the Hulk up at the plate batting against little leaguers. It became clear that son was cheating. It didn't destroy my faith in the game; I had attached myself to failed baseball icons early in my life -- for my little league profile card, I listed Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden as the players I most wanted to be like (no joke...moms was real proud of that one).

I now find myself watching Bonds with a detached awareness. I know he's going to break Ruth's record within the next week or so and Aaron's record is certainly within reach, but I don't care. He'll get his record, but its meaningless. Son is a joke and his career statistics should be treated as such. Of course its not just him, steroids have no doubt been used by quite a few of the players in the MLB.

But this pervasive culture of cheating doesnt just exist in baseball. Its even infected the real love of my life, hip hop. Nah, not in the sense that MC's are using drugs (though a steroid test might be in order for Busta and 50); hell, most of the great albums wouldn't have been made without some sort of illegal substance getting passed around the studio. There's a lyrical steroid out there, though, that's making subpar MCs knock rhymes outta the park: Ghostwriters.

Ghostwriters have been around since the start of hip hop. Grandmaster Caz's lyrics were used by the Sugar Hill Gang in Rapper's Delight (check the lyrics, his name is still in there). Big Daddy Kane wrote lyrics for Biz Markie. The Beastie Boys got an assist from Run DMC. The D.O.C. carried Death Row on his back with all of the lyrics he ghostwrote for them, including Dr. Dre, who can create beats for days but couldn't put a solid 16 bars together if his life depended on it. Foxxy Brown relied on Jay-Z to write for her and it was the Jigga man that was really Missing B.I.G. when Puffy was rapping with Sting. Junior M.A.F.I.A.'s rhymes? Biggie's fingerprints are all over that. Phife Dawg didn't write any of his own rhymes until the second album from A Tribe Called Quest. Lil' Wayne calls up Gilly Da Kid whenever he needs a new rhyme. Kanye West makes the claim that he's one of the greatest rappers of all time, but Jesus Walks wouldn't have been made without Rhymefest's ghostwriting. Even some DJs have used their own form of ghostwriters.

In the same way that steroid use in baseball has tainted the stats of all the players from this era, ghostwriting is doing the same thing to hip hop. You can't be sure that your favorite rapper has actually written the words that are coming out of his mouth. Sure, it might still be a hot line, but to me its like the difference between the WWE and Olympic wrestling -- just a substitute for something real.

One of the most prolific ghostwriters in hip hop is (Madd) Skillz. A couple of years ago he released the track Ghost Writer, where he aired out the names of a bunch of rappers he has written for: Puffy, Mase, Jadakiss, Will Smith and Jermaine Dupri. Four of those names aren't really surprising, but Jada? I guess that excuses his verse on the Paris Hilton song.

Here is Skillz' Ghost Writer. The studio version has the rappers' names edited out:

(track after the jump -->)

5/15/2006 10:03:25 AM posted by Fresh