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I could spend the next year listing all of the accolades of super producer Rick Rubin but I won’t. The chances are, if you clicked this article then you already know who Rick Rubin is and how far-reaching his cultural impact is in the music industry having worked withe everyone from Run DMC to Johnny Cash, and Jay-Z to Eminem.
Rick Rubin founded Def Jam during his senior year of high school using his school’s 4-track recorder and parlayed that into one of the most successful careers in the music industry. He recently sat down with Joe Rogan on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast for a pretty rare media appearance.
They pair talked about everything from how ‘Walk This Way’ but Run DMC brought Hip-Hop music to the mainstream, to Rick Rubin breaking down how the recording styles of Jay-Z and Eminem differ. Here is that latter segment with Rubin’s quotes along with the video.
Rick Rubin Breaks Down How Eminem And Jay-Z Differ In Recording Styles
Joe Rogan: “The different ways of approaching Comedy, it’s got to parallel with Music, right? There’s got to be some artists that just want to riff, they want to figure it out on the fly, they want to do it all almost off the top of their heads. And then there are other artists where every single word is gone over and meticulously analyzed and pieced together?”
Rock Rubin: “There’s no right or wrong way. You just have to find your way and whatever works for you. I’ve worked with artists who do it completely different ways.”
“You’ll see Eminem, he’s always writing in a book. Always writing all the time. And he’s always got notebooks and writing. And I ask him, like ‘are these all rhymes to use?’ and he’s like ‘nah, 99% of what I write I’ll never use. It’s just to stay engaged in the process of writing and finding new ways to write so that when I need it it just comes.'”
“Jay-Z doesn’t write anything down and he just listens to the beat and hums, hums, and then goes on the mic 20 minutes later and says a whole complicated verse. I don’t know how he can remember it much less have just written it and just be able to do it like freely, it’s crazy.”
Joe Rogan: “Does he practice on his own? Does he create these raps on his own? Or does he do it when he’s talking to people? Or does he only do it on stage?”
Rock Rubin: “No no no, this is for a record. When we were recording ’99 Problems’ I played the beat for him, he likes the beat, and then he says ‘okay, just keep playing it.’ He then sits in the back of the control room on the couch and you just hear him humming (hums along). 15 or 20 minutes (later) and then he jumps up and is like ‘okay, I got it’.”
“And he goes in, no paper, no writing, nothing. And he delivers the whole thing and then says ‘let’s try it again’ and then he does it again. And th words will be the same but the phrasing will be different so it’s more like an improvisational solo. If you have a melody you can play the same melody with putting emphasis on different parts of it. So he does it, it’s not the same. The words are the same, or close to the same. But the feeling of it and the rhythm of it changes when he does it again and he does it a few times.”
Check out the full clip here
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that Rick Rubin has had one of the most fascinating careers of anyone in the music industry. Certainly amongst people who werent’ on the microphone themselves.