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As Rick Ross prepares to release his eight studio album Black Market in December, all eyes are back on the Maybach Music Group boss once more. In a revealing interview with TIME, Ricky Rozay touches on several topics which include ghostwriting, the evolution of his brand and much more.

TIME caught up with Ross backstage ahead of his taping at The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. Ross was especially candid about his creative process, explaining that Adele’s “Hello” record moved him in such a way that he recorded a remix of the track. But it was Ross’ thoughts on ghostwriting that stood out most of all considering the fervor surrounding the Meek Mill vs. Drake feud from earlier this year.

More from TIME:

How did your time in the headlines shape the direction of the album?

It most definitely made it a more personal record, it made it a more—I don’t want to use the word serious, but more a topic-driven record. I had a lot of time to just sit by myself, so I had a lot more things I wanted to address. That’s what I did on this LP. I spoke on different things. One of them goes by the name of “Ghostwriter.” I finally wrote a record telling the way it feels for me to be a ghostwriter, and not only a ghostwriter, but one of the biggest in the rap game. Because of my own personal success I’ve always been able to keep that in the shadows. On this record, I just felt it was so current. It was needed.

Ghostwriting was a big topic this year with the feud between Drake and Meek Mill. Do you think that having someone write rhymes for you is necessarily at odds with being an authentic artist?

It depends on really the point you’re looking at. If you’re a battle rapper on the block, the emcee battle challenger, not writing your rhymes could really hurt you. When you’re an artist where maybe the focus is really the talent and the different things you bring to the game, I believe it’s more understandable. Someone who may have another vision or just ideas that are priceless versus someone who’s like, “I’m basing my entire career off the words I’m finna tell you right now over this 30-second period.” I’m not speaking to anybody in particular, but let’s say for instance if you was DMX and had a ghostwriter, it’d maybe change the [perception] versus if you was will.i.am. I think that’s more about the music, the records.

Read the rest Rick Ross’ interview with TIME by following this link.

Photo: Instagram