The Counterintuitive Production Trick That Turned Rap into a Juggernaut| Rick Rubin EP 607

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:11What was that first time where you're like, I can't stop it. It's just a movement of its own. It's taking over the world. It's everywhere. Everything lined up and things just took off. It happened early on when I started making hip hop records. So still going to NYU, living in the dorm room. We made seven 12-inch singles over maybe a year. and those got very popular, but very popular in this underground world. You know, it was an underground world. Most people had never heard rap music. You know, rap music was not what it was. It was a very underground form of local music. But there was a club called Negril, which was a reggae club.

0:52And one night a week they had rap music and they would bring artists from those other places and they would play there. And I would go to that every week and get to hear rap music. and that was the most exciting. It felt very tangential to punk rock for me. It felt like it's another music of pure expression on a street level where the people who are making it are not virtuosos, young people who have something to say. I just loved it. It really started more as a documentarian because I would go to this hip hop club and it was great. And the music, the live music was so cool and so interesting. And then the records that were coming out at that time, And there were no albums yet, but there were 12-inch singles.

1:34And the rap 12-inch singles that would come out didn't have the energy that I heard at the club. Because the people who were making them were experienced music makers. They were not people from hip-hop. If the people who were making the hip-hop records of those days had experience making R &B records, then they were essentially R &B records, except with somebody rapping. And that's not what drew me. I didn't really like R &B. I liked the energy of hip hop, which was the DJ culture and cutting break beats. It was a very aggressive form of music, different than R &B. So I set out to make music really as a fan to make the things that I wanted to hear that other people weren't making.

2:20No one was making them. If there were great rap records being made when I started, I don't know that I ever would have started doing it. It was more of a, I want to hear this. I know this can be done. It's happening live, but no one is making a record that feels like what the music actually is like. I went to a recording studio and created the energy, for example, a drum machine and a DJ scratching. That was not what the record sounded like before that. Before that, the record sounded like an R &B record, a normal record with a band playing. It didn't have that same feel, yeah. Yeah, it's a different thing.

2:57It was a new form of music that was being presented as traditional music with a new top line. But that's not what it was. What was the album that really took off first for you then, where you're like, wow, this is being played everywhere, this is selling everywhere, this is like a movement? The first album I ever made was LL Cool J's first album. He was 16 years old when he came to the dorm room to me. And that one became very successful. and then after that was the Beastie Boys' License to Ill, first Beastie Boys album, and Run DMC's Raising Hell. How did you have the confidence when these bands would come to you that you were fans of, as a teenager essentially, to say, okay, I'm going to go make the greatest album you've ever made?

3:42I'm the fan, and I can listen and feel like this is where it's really doing what I want as a fan, and this is where it just sounds like you're trying to please somebody, I can see where it's honest and where it's not. Is there a thin line between inauthentic and truth? No. Or is it a big break? It's a big break. It's not like, okay, I can almost feel you, but you're not fully there. You're like, it's a big mistake. It's usually a big break. What is missing? What's the gap in between trying to please people with something that maybe sounds good, but as inauthentic to honest truth from the artist.

4:21I don't know how we can tell when we're hearing it, but there's something about the intention of the artist making the music that comes through in the thing that they're making. And when the intention is pure, we can feel it. Do you think it's more about the artist's way of thinking and mindset or their emotions and feelings that create? It's both. Really? It's both. But what would you say to artists who want to be perfect on stage, live? It's being true to the moment. I can remember seeing Radiohead play two nights in a row at Radio City Music Hall a long time ago. And the first night, Tom York, the singer, looked as if he was miserable, and there was nowhere in the world he would less like to be than at this concert.

5:10And he was just stone-faced, standing there, going through the motions. And then the next night, it was like an entirely different person. He was completely exuberant, jumping around the stage. It was remarkable. One of the reasons Radiohead's so great is because of that. Not that the show is different, but that it's real. You're getting to see him be him. Really be him. In that moment, how are we feeling? However it is, it's true to the moment. And you get to experience all of that energy. and it's not the same every night. It changes night to night based on the person and that's very exciting.

5:49It's exciting to see. It's unpredictable. It has a different kind of a currency when it's not the same all the time. It's not that it's always available. In some ways, probably the best artists are like that. Now, what makes the great artists the great artists is they can tap into that great night more consistently. with jazz. Jazz is an improvisational form. It happens spontaneously on the night. There's a theme and then improvisation happens based on theme. And sometimes when you're improvising, it goes better. Sometimes it goes worse. What makes the greats are the ones who can go out on that limb, do it different every time and have more examples of great than not, but willing to crash and burn because that's part of the excitement too.

6:39That's part of the thrill.

6:52Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description that will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on the School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

7:42Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.