Taylor Swift is often praised (and criticized) for her songwriting, but the pop star believes that female artists are always being scrutinized for what they do and don’t do in regards to their songs. While men seem to get a pass, or at least aren’t put under a microscope as songwriters, Swift believes that female artists are picked apart. And she says that it’s especially egregious with female rappers.
In an interview with TIME magazine, Swift mentioned hip-hop stars like Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea and the way that they constantly have to fight rumors that they have men ghostwriting their rhymes.
“It’s a little discouraging that females have to work so much harder to prove that they do their own things,” Taylor Swift says. “I see Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea having to prove that they write their own raps or their own lyrics, and it makes me sad, because they shouldn’t have to justify it.”
Minaj has been the subject of ghostwriting rumors for years, with detractors claiming that her lyrics have been written by everyone from YMCMB superstar Lil Wayne to Ransom. Azalea’s raps were rumored to be the product of her mentor T.I.’s pen. All of these speculative stories have been dismissed by all involved. The rumors about the two rappers sparked a bit of a controversy this past summer when Nicki Minaj defended her writing at the BET Awards in what many perceived to be a diss aimed at Azalea.
“What I want the world to know about Nicki Minaj,” she said, “when you hear Nicki Minaj spit, Nicki Minaj wrote it.”
