Rick Rubin Knows Nothing About Music

This guy's just like the Yoda of this music shit. Mythical, like voodoo shit. Laying down barefoot with his eyes closed, gently swaying his head. What is this guy actually doing? That that little part was I felt that interesting. Yeah, exactly. Spin a rock spin it. Welcome back to the one more time show. It's been a minute, man. I felt like I was on my deathbed. Wait, you gotta let me do the one more time. We got Drake on the show now. Welcome, Drake. Right before this episode, we are huge Rick Rubin fans, first and foremost. Massive. Yep. So he's pushing this new book. So he's doing the press run, right? He's doing interviews, he's doing 60 minutes, which is what we just literally finished watching. I've watched it now like three times because I love Rick. What'd you think of that? It's it's sums up, I mean, who he is and how how he thinks perfectly. And this guy's just like the Yoda of this music shit, man.

I think I love the fact that, you know, Anderson Cooper asks him, Do you play any instruments? Barely. Not at all. Do you know how to use that soundboard over there? I don't know, or he was like. I know nothing technical. I know nothing technical, and I know nothing about music. I know nothing about music. That was the most, yeah. That was the craziest one. That was aggressive. That one was a little aggressive. You clearly know something about music, but I get what he's trying to say by that, right? Like it's it's the feeling thing for him. It's a very spiritual type of situation when it comes to producing for him, right? Yeah, how much of it now, like when he says shit like that, is like part of the brand, right? Totally part of the brand. I mean, dude, I I would venture to say a couple of Anderson's questions were like, you know, consulted by Rick Rubin. You know, they're just perfect, like the perfect questions. So what do they pay you for? Yeah, yeah, yeah. My taste, you know? Yeah. No, I I definitely agree that it felt a little bit like leading. And once again, you know, shout out to him, his new book on creativity.

I think he is one of the most creative people in the world, though. Um across genres, too. And I think his creative spirit is beautiful in the fact that like his approach really is to genuinely get the best out of the artists that he works with, have them be their truest, most authentic selves and create the most genuine art, right? And all that shit sounds like so fluffy and like bullshit. Fairy dust, right? And and I think you know, people call him like the guru and whatnot, and it does have this like weird, like cult like, you know, kind of it's very zen, it's almost religious kind of feeling to it, you know. Yeah, yeah, weird kind of. But it is a very interesting, you know, approach. I mean, the fact that he refers to himself as a reducer instead of a producer. I love that. Reduced by Rick Rubin, not produced by Rick Rubin. It's like, bring me what you got, and then let's strip it to the elements that actually like the bare minimum needed to get the message across. Yeah, is a beautiful thing.

I think the funniest was Chuck D, you know, they interviewed Chuck D to get his perspective because obviously he like was very closely tied to public enemy, and he he reminisced about like how Rick will lay down, you know, eyes closed to hear the music and consume the music, right? And he straight up was like, yo, is this dude asleep? Like, like for real. He's laying down barefoot with his eyes closed, gently swaying his head. What is this guy actually doing? Yeah, it's it's it's incredible what he's done, man. I mean, for me, the impressive, the most impressive part is probably just the you know, no bound to any genre. Yeah, right. That's kind of what proves his whole thesis, because his whole thing falls apart if it only works in one genre, right? But the fact that you can do this for Johnny Cash and then System of a Down and then Jay-Z and Red Hot Chili Peppers and Public Enemy and Adele, Kesha. like the fact that it works, you know, your theories work for all these different artists in these different genres, kind of you know, it kind of validates it, man. It's hard to argue that this shit's like not working, you know.

It's he's just confident in his taste and believes in nothing more than making the best song possible, and that's super valuable, I think. Yeah, it's um it's just interesting. I think how he can approach all of those artists, right? I would love who approaches who, I wonder, yeah. And I think you know, shit. We started talking about the business side of it and how much he gives a fuck, right? About that and who handles that because the dude's getting paid right for sure. He's not missing any meals, right? His house is a very nice. comfortable home. He would have you believe that he doesn't care about the money, maybe by the way he talks, but he's got it figured out. Dude's getting paid. Yeah. Um, but I I just think it's interesting as far as like to get the truest art form out of these creatives, right? Like, I do still wonder because you don't see too much interactions out there, right? Like you'll see, you'll hear these little things or whatever, but the cameras are rolling and shit. Like, I'd love to be a fly on the wall at Shangri-La, man, yeah, and really know what the pre-production and pre-recording process and conversations look like.

Because how do you get the best out of out of an artist if you don't know them and you don't know how they like to work, right? Right there's got to be a lot of like getting to know one another and figuring that out and how that looks like for Rick and the various artists he's worked with. I'd love to know like more about it, man. I got a feeling that a lot of it is I'm feeling that it's less than you think. Like he's not doing as much as people think, but as like maybe lazy or lame as that sounds, I think that's part of the beauty. I kind of equate it to like engineering when I'm mixing a record. Like I used to always think like I gotta do this, I gotta do this, I gotta do this. So much of it though is figuring out what's working and just like stepping back first and kind of taking a breath, seeing like what about this is actually working and does not need to be messed with. There's an engineer named um Andrew, God, what's his name? Andrew something. He he like trolls about mixing, he's one of the greatest mixers of all time. And he's like, Well, I like this part, but so I left it alone. Um, this sounded really cool on this part, so I left that alone. Um, this intro was really working, so I left that alone.

And it's like he's joking and trolling, but like that is like a lot of you know what the process should be. There's people that just give their input or change something kind of for the sake of doing it. And everyone that I hear talking about Rick in the studio, it's like he's sitting there, he's laying there, he's not saying much, he's not doing much. But at the right time when there's just one thing that could maybe be better here, and this part kind of just sets in motion a chain of events that just makes the whole outcome better. Okay, so here's what I really want to know then. Let me put it this way He gave an example that I think is exactly what I want to hear, more examples like this, but just across all the different artists he's work with, right? So Tom Petty, Last Dance with Mary Jane. Yeah, did you hear the like story about I think it was in that one. yeah, exactly? So to recap, basically that that that riff Tom Petty sent five songs, and there was like a little riff when he was warming up, and he was like that. That felt very real.

That's a good thing. It was in between tracks or something as like a warm-up to the next one, right? He had sent like five demos. And yeah, to your point, it was just a fucking around not to ever actually meant to be heard. This is back when, like, you couldn't probably like easily mix or like chop something, you know what I mean? It was just like the tape was running type shit. Right. Right. Sends it to Rick, and Rick's like, hey, like that, that little part was I felt that interesting. Yeah, exactly. So, like, even something like that, I can understand where they would then credit, or like Tom Petty would then credit Rick to like birthing this beautiful thing that became if he did nothing after that. Exactly. He's the reason that it happened. But I want to hear more examples like that. Yeah. Where what is he saying or doing those critical little pieces? And the problem is, I bet the artist can't even necessarily remember. Yeah. But they just know that when they were in that fucking room with him, whatever happened happened. It's like lightning in a bottle.

Yeah. Kind of thing. So I do wonder how much is like that mythical like voodoo shit, and like how much is actual like him picking out a certain thing to do that then changed the whole trajectory of the record. No, I I kind of see it when I'm making beats. I've had things happen on accident that turned out to be the coolest fucking part of the beat or mixing a song. I was working on a song with Leah, and I had a plug-in was just bugging out and causing her vocals to like repeat and like go and move around left and right and do this some kind of crazy type of motion. And at first, you know, you're like, what the hell? And then you kind of just actually listen to it, and you're like, it kind of just fit the vibe of the record. It was chaos, but it kind of made sense. And uh I was out in LA, I had mileage shut up, Mileage, former guest playing guitar, and we're working on beats together, and we had a very dark kind of bass of a beat going, and he was laying guitar on top of it, and kind of just still like figuring out what the chords were. He had just pulled it out, just plugged it in. He's got you know most of the chords right, but he would hit like an off one sometimes, and I remember like it catching my ear, like, oh, that chord didn't really make sense there, but it had a feeling, so that's when I kind of feel Rick in those moments.

Yeah, and I mean music's all about feelings for sure. It is so he that's his favorite word, probably. Yeah, for sure. It's definitely his most used uh word in the dictionary. Yeah, moving on though, to something that's a little more ratchet. Move on from Rick to Ratchet? We have to. From Rick to Ratchet should be the title of this show. From Rick to Ratchet, one more time show. Um 21 Savage, man. What's he doing? Let me start by saying this. What's he doing, man? He's fucking up. Oh, at least he fucked up. And um, because he, you know, yeah, you know, you hear his music, you know the type of dude that he is, but I still think he's smarter than people give him credit for. He is a smart dude. Yeah. He he kind of gets it. This was not smart. This might have been uh, I don't know if it was like he was drinking kind of thing, or just complete lapse of judgment, regardless of substances involved or not. He's just from the streets about that life, and it brought it out of him. But yeah, for people that don't know, go ahead and yeah.

I mean, to the best of my ability, and I'm just hearing clips, obviously. Shout out Clubhouse. How the fuck are y'all still around? Little, but I thought that was like a fad. I think Twitter spaces came and went taking him out. I think it's been infiltrated by this type of conversation, majority now, which is a big you know, reason why 21 should probably just stay the fuck off Clubhouse. But well, shout out Meezy too for keep making Clubhouse a thing with the Meezo estates. I was tapped into some of the Meezo estates. Yeah, I'm not sure Meezy, his manager condones this type of behavior on that. I'm sure he doesn't. So go ahead. So to summarize, basically, he gets into an argument with what was called a Chicago goon. The guy didn't even get a name in the headlines. Nameless Op Nameless OP from Chicago from Chirac. Basically, 21 would go on to get extremely heated, uh, very vocal, very riled up about the fact that a bunch of people died in Chicago, and a bunch of him and his homies here in Atlanta, and or I guess in Chicago did not die. And it was implied that those people died at the hands of his people.

Like that that's that's the conversation that was kind of being had. 21 essentially said, you know, when me and my gang got ops, 30 of them die. Yeah. In real life. Kind of so that's that's not you know, it's a public forum, man. It's like obviously there's people listening, it's probably recorded, obviously, it's on social media already. You know, the judges of his future Rico case are going like this, probably right now. Yeah, multiple like, you know, defense lawyers and shit like came out being like, yo, you should probably stop. I saw the one said that APD actively listens to everything y'all are talking about. Why wouldn't they? On here. Of course they do. It's like open season. Yeah. It's a public forum. I think people get comfortable, maybe, or the technology seems like not real life, but it's definitely real life and has real world implications. Yeah, man. And like, once again, we're not here to condone or you know, throw judgment on the actions that may or may not actually have been committed, right? That he implied.

That's a whole other conversation. Is like, you know. It is. It is. But my. point, do we want him to shut the fuck up or do you want justice for him actually murdering people? Yeah. I mean, my point is is that I just think he should watch what he's saying. My point is more so honestly, as well, for just like public perception. Just in general. Yeah. If I'm managing an artist like 21, I want you to watch what you're tweeting. I want you to watch what you're saying. I mean, that just comes with like basic media training and just basic like PR training, right? I want you to watch what you're saying. But how many. of them? And then when it gets into like criminally incriminating shit, I really want you to fucking watch what you're saying because that is a career ender right there. But how much are you hurting the brand because so much of his brand is built on he is that dude in the streets? He is that dude in these situations. But he's kind of the quiet dude, bro. He reflects it in his exactly. And that may it comes across as even more savage, right? It's kind of his brand.

So I think his fans, right? His fans like when he's like that, I think. So is that just adding more toxic sauce on the whole situation? Fuck, man. I mean, you know, what I mean. we've talked about this a ton, whether it's fucking R. Kelly, Michael Jackson, you know, whoever, right? Street street rappers. You still support them for the art? Do you separate the art from the artists? Yeah. And how easy is that to do? Yeah. And to your point, we're kind of like enamored by this street shit, bro. We love it. We love murder, death, gangs, fucking beef, ops. We love that shit. We like it in the same way that women like their murder mystery podcasts and shit. I guess so, man. It's the same thing. But it's like, yeah, at what point, you know, is is the real world implication, you know, does it become too much? For sure. So speaking of people we thought were dead. Okay, great segue. Carol Baskin's dead husband is allegedly alive and well. The one that everyone got pissed at.

Let's give it up. Let's give it up for him. What's the source here? I don't have a source. I don't think anyone had a source that reported this. Yeah. But he is apparently alive and well down in Costa Rica. So shout out to him. He's with the monkeys. He's in the jungle. He's surfing. He's doing yoga. So all the all the Costa Rica things. Do you think this old white lady just agreed to like make up a story that was guaranteed to go viral and be the most hated person in America for a year and and let it ride like that? Is that what you're saying? Don't ask questions. I'm just I'm just here to give you the headlines. We're asking questions now. I'm just here to give you the headlines. I'm transitioning it into questions. Because I could see it being true. I mean, people have done dumb stuff to go viral since the internet was a thing. You know, I mean, even probably before that. Just did you hear about even the 1800s? I also didn't see like a picture of this guy alive in Costa Rica. So like maybe he's not there. Yeah.

You know, Tupac's also supposed to be in the Bahamas or some shit or whatever, right? Maybe she did murder this guy. She might have actually fucking put him six feet under. Anyways. I didn't think we were going Tiger King on this episode. That's crazy. We're covering all of our bases here, bro. Yeah. So moving on to another story that I actually found super dope. I think you would appreciate this as a producer. Okay. J. Cole basically released a song via an up and coming, like, no name, if you will, producer on his YouTube channel. On the producer's YouTube channel. On the up and coming producer's YouTube channel. So he found this beat by literally shout out to YouTube. Rappers, if you producers, if you don't think rappers are out there, even the J. Coles of the world are searching themselves up. J. Cole type beat. He found this super dope beat by this fire producer. He basically cut a record to it, and his manager found the producer's contact info, and the producer, like, you know, tweeted this text conversation, and it was like, I thought this shit was cap. Like, you know, Ebe, who's who's Cole's manager, hit me up saying, like, yo, Cole fucks with your beats.

We found you on YouTube, blah, blah, blah, blah. Moral of the story is you can fucking reach your favorite artist by consistently uploading fire shit to YouTube. Type beats. Type beats still work, bro. Because there's a there's a lot of controversy around type beats. Type beats are still working, bro. They're out here getting Cole placements. It's great to hear on their own YouTube channels. It's great to hear that. Cause you got guys like Cash Money AP who dominated internet beat sales for the longest time. And it did translate into placements, but these were like, you know, just barely placements. Like the artists that were, it was never like the the Coles and the you know, Kendricks and these type of people. So that is the highest level that I've heard a type beat finding its way to the intended artist. And I hope this is not a publicity stunt, right? Because it is obviously getting a ton of publicity, hence why we're talking about it. But he sent a message to the producer once again, basically saying that like I want to make sure that like producers and the people making dope music out there are getting the love that they deserve. And it sounds like some cold shit because what's funny, bro, is that before I even saw that headline, guess what I watched yesterday?

J. Cole documentary. The revenge documentary that documented the Revenge of the Dreamers sessions. Yeah. And Cole's attitude about like having all these creatives in one place and making the best music possible and giving people that are up and coming producers and artists chances to be on records together. It was like He's like the Rick Rubin of It was almost like YouTube probably knew that this like story was circulating. Yeah. And it fed me this because it literally came up in like a suggested feed to watch this documentary, which is from 2019. It was it was fire. Wow. Yeah. So shout out to Cole, man. What a guy. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, he definitely same he's he he's one of those ones that like I hope he's exactly as he seems to be, you know. So there's a J. Cole song that only lives on some tiny little producer's YouTube channel. I wish I even like remembered his name. There's not a music video, is there? Uh there might be one coming out. No, I don't know. Nah, no, that'd be too fire. It's just official audio type of thing. All right, moving on. We're gonna run through some ridiculous headlines at this point. Let's do it.

Nelly's gone viral. This time for what, Henry? I don't know. For looking like he's extremely fucked up. Okay. Like on just hella molly, hella e like eyes in the back of his head, like fucked up. All right, how do I let I'm gonna find it? I want to look at it. A few moments later. So how do you see it? So I mean, you know, so he took a little Molly and he was enjoying himself at a concert. Let this man live, right? Let this man live. We get to laugh about it. Like, that is the consequent Nelly. If you're watching this, you should know the consequence of that is we get to watch it and we get to laugh at it because it's hilarious. But we still support you and we still love you. That's the Nelly content I'm here for at this point. At this point in his career, that's what I want to see. That's what he's looking for. Alright, what else has been going on this week? By the way, I uh interned, I didn't intern, but I was like working the front desk for Nelly at Doppler. Serving ten years ago. I let him in the door. I let him and his gang in the door. Serve him somali. That's not my Molly. If the feds are watching, this is a public platform. Ten years later, that's not yours.

I literally just pressed a button to let him uh in the door. Well, shout out to you. What else has been happening this week? How about the AB Snapchat scandal? What happened? Oh God. I can only assume it was on Snapchat, but go. ahead. You don't know about it? No, go ahead. Enlighten me. Essentially posted uh very explicit pictures of his baby mama as he should uh performing oral sex on him Oh God. and also one of him having uh intercourse with her. And um what position were they in? So you can only see her face. We're gonna assume it was a clean missionary. You can only see her face. I'm not saying that I went on Twitter and watched it, but I do know. I think I did just kind of admit that. But um, yeah, and then he later he claimed that he was hacked. What Do you think Oh, wow. You think Antonio Brown would? he went with the hack? The hack defense. The hack defense hasn't worked in years. bro. Because Snapchat um temporarily banned his account as soon as it was posted. They were in on it.

And then he went on they were like, yo, we we got you. The hack defense is gonna work this time. Snapchat was in on it. It's insane. They're colluding with him. I will say that's the platform to do a a scandal like that. So oh, it's perfectly on brand. Makes sense. Snapchat's like, hell yeah, that's what happens on this platform, baby. Um, okay, so moving on to some more sexual social media type of stuff, right? Here we go. You're gonna love this. Maybe. Instagram, I believe, right? Oh god, not this one. Has lifted the ban on titty pics If you identify as transgender or nonbinary or non-binary. Non-binary, yes. Yeah, and my first question to you was how are they policing this shit, bro? They they can't police it because you know it's that's discrimination. It's your decision how you identify identify. Correct. So any porn star, any straight porn star could just put non-binary in their bio.

So is that is that what it takes and post their bio? Right? I don't know. Yeah, what are the criteria? What are the criteria to not get, you know, flagged? Yeah. Because otherwise, anyone, that's why I didn't even believe this when you told me. It's just like anyone could do it, right? I that's what I'm saying. It's just I mean, it's a headline, but it is or are they trying to compete with Twitter? Yeah, That's a good point. Are they, like, we're losing too much of the sex market to Twitter? I think we're about to get bare female nipples on Instagram and Facebook. One can only hope. One can hope. That would be a game changer. that would be a game changer. Step in the right direction, Instagram. All right, what else has been happening? Let's leave it on this one. Usain Bolt scammed out of 12 million dollars. I have no response to that. Wait, no, seriously, how did he get scammed? I'm not exactly sure. I think he just put you know his money in like uh one of these securities and you know, investment type companies some Madoff shit, some junior Madoff. Yeah, it's like a baby Bernie Madoff. Hey, I got these investments for you, Usain. I can get you 15 and a half percent on your 12 million, but um it's a yeah, his 12 million is supposedly worth 12,000 now. So that he doesn't deserve that, man.

Shout out to the fastest man in the world. He's working with, I think, the city of Kingston to try and figure this shit out, man. That's not cool. Good luck, Usain. We love you. This has been another One More Time Show. As always. Please like, comment, and subscribe. That really helps us out. We hope you enjoyed this one, and we will see you next week. One more. Sorry we missed an episode. I was literally on my deathbed. He was almost dead. Until next week, Henry, what are we doing? Getting out of here. We're getting out of here. Peace. Peace.