Royce Da 5'9 Says You Can Only Be A Top Tier Lyricist If You Write Everything

Ghostwriting controversies haven't seemed to hurt Drake's career one bit.

But it has cost him some esteem within the industry.

Royce Da 5'9 is still a big Drake fan. But, as he told Vlad TV, he can no longer appreciate Drizzy's bars the way he once did.

"For me to look and see the way that everybody reacted to that, that was pretty fuckin' surprising," Royce Da 5'9 said. "And it made me not care. And when I first heard about it, I was like 'What?! Drizzy? Drizzy not writing?' Cause he's so fuckin' dope...It's a newer way of creating. And I guess Hip Hop is evolving a little bit slower than the other genres. And if this is what it's evolving into, as an OG I expect it...You're still a great artist by pulling the songs together that way. You can't take that away from 'em. But when you talking about best lyricist, I guess it comes down to what being a lyricist means to you. What is a lyricist to you? To me, a lyricist is a writer...You gotta write everything to be a top-tier lyricist."

"I walked away from that process a much better artist," Royce said. "I think I owe Diddy a lot. Cause he taught me--And I don't even know if he realized it at that time, but he taught me the art of re-writing. Because I wasn't a re-writer prior to that process. And I thought he was just being hard on me, but really he was pushing me as a way of pushing himself."