As his war with Drake just escalated in a massive way today (Saturday, April 13) thanks to an alleged leaked diss track from Aubrey, Kendrick Lamar now has another big headline to worry about.

Moreover, a Twitter user by the name of @certifiedjared and various other social media pages claimed that he used a ghostwriter on the track “N95” off of his 2022 album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. The presumed ghostwriter in question is CJ Francis IV, and a demo also surfaced that’s supposedly from 2019 in which you can hear Francis use the flow and some of the lyrics that the Compton rapper included in his song. Jared and many others pointed out that Francis is not officially credited on “N95.”

However, at press time, this all remains mostly speculative, and both Kendrick Lamar Stans and regular rap fans had a few counter-arguments or questions. First is their claim that “N95” had already leaked in 2019, so the veracity of this claim is more in question than folks assume.

Still, either argument for it isn’t really air-tight, and thus this is still part of the rumor mill. But one of the most interesting aspects of this whole debate is how CJ Francis IV is a Quentin Miller associate, the Drake ghostwriter whose name places a heavy cloud over “Prince” and “Mike Jack’s” conflict.

While this is one accusation of ghostwriting against Kendrick Lamar, Drake has encountered many of these throughout his career, and was still able to overcome them. Having writers is by no means a bad thing… if they’re credited… but even if not, it’s too common of an industry trope to single out any one criminal. If it wasn’t for this current beef, maybe this wouldn’t have really drawn the fanfare that it’s getting on some Internet corners right now. If you take one thing away from our article, let it be this: check out CJ Francis IV’s music instead of dismissing him.