Hardwell Says He Had A Ghost Production In Beatport’s Top 10

After recently discovering that Martin Garrix ghost-produced a Beatport hit, now we have been made aware that Hardwell has also ghost produced a Beatport Top 10 hit as well. Hardwell told InTheMix “I’m fine with ghost-producing, but then again…if you’re not producing your own tracks then just be honest, say “you know what, I’m a good DJ but I can’t produce my own songs, I got help”. I think that’s fair. Because honestly, you can hear it, because every single track sounds totally different. Everybody in the scene knows who works with ghost-producers.

The funny thing is, nobody knows I have a current Beatport Top Ten hit with a track not under my name, a track that I ghost-produced, and nobody’s noticing it. But if people listen closely to the top ten, for sure they’re gonna hear which track it is.”

Ghost production has been one of dance music’s worst-kept secrets for years, and 2013 was shaping up to be the year everyone finally started saying it out loud. Just days before Hardwell’s comments, Garrix admitted that a track he’d quietly produced for someone else had turned into a genuine Beatport hit under a different name, and Hardwell’s confession follows a similar pattern: a top-tier headliner with a packed tour schedule leaning on studio help to keep new music flowing, then choosing to be upfront about it rather than let rumors do the talking.

What separates Hardwell’s take from the usual defensive non-answer is that he doesn’t dodge the question at all. He draws a clear line between artists who quietly outsource their entire catalog and pass it off as their own versus DJs who are honest that production help is part of how the sausage gets made at that level of touring. Whether or not anyone ever nailed down which Top 10 track he was talking about, the comments became part of a bigger conversation the scene was having at the time about authorship, credit, and what “producer” even means when a DJ’s schedule barely leaves room to sit at a laptop.

It’s worth remembering that this era, late 2013, was something of a tipping point for the topic. Garrix and Hardwell weren’t the only big names getting asked about it, and outlets across the dance music press ran with the story for weeks. It’s a conversation dance music is still having, honestly. Ghost production hasn’t gone anywhere, and neither has the debate about how much it really matters as long as the record slaps on a festival main stage.