Rick Rubin

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Rick Rubin is an American record producer. He was born in 1963 in Long Beach, New York. At secondary school he played in punk bands, and as a film student in New York he had the hardcore band Hose. Through DJ Jazzy Jay of the Zulu Nation he fell under the spell of hip-hop. Together with Russell Simmons he started the label Def Jam in 1984 from his student room. The first release was I Need a Beat by LL Cool J. The Beastie Boys followed, whom he took from punk to rap, and then Public Enemy.

Music and breakthrough

Rubin made hip-hop bare and hard: a heavy drum machine, scratches and often a rock guitar, without much reverb or stacked layers. That worked the other way round as well. In 1986 he produced Walk This Way, on which Run-DMC and Aerosmith remade a rock song together. That record introduced the general public to the combination of rap and hard rock and gave Aerosmith a second life. The same year he made the metal album Reign in Blood with Slayer.

Influence

In 1988 he moved to Los Angeles and started a new label, later American Recordings. He produced Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991) by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, with Give It Away and Under the Bridge, and after that many more albums by that band. From 1994 he made a series of stripped-down albums with Johnny Cash, including a version of Hurt by Nine Inch Nails. Rubin works in virtually every genre and is known for taking artists back to the core of their music.

Listening

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• Mixtape 4: When Rock Was Still Pop^NL Reader
• Mixtape 6: Fear of a Black Planet^NL Reader