How Rick Rubin and Kanye West make groundbreaking creative work.

So, what is it that Rick Rubin does? How has he helped artists make their best music for almost half a century across such disparate genres and styles? The secret seems to be rooted in self-discovery. As Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks put it, Rubin “has the ability and the patience to let music be discovered, not manufactured”—or, to use our te

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This combination of the internal, intangible emotional journey and the practical skill of making music, or, as Rubin describes it, the “heartwork and headwork,” is how he’s sustained his craft across genres for so many decades. He taps into something far beyond the type of music or production style, and instead connects to the artist through a firs

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