Today's episode is an encore presentation of a conversation I had with music producer Rick Rubin back in 2023.

Rick Rubin has the reputation for being able to elicit things from the musicians he works with that other people can't. The last thing I expected

was that he would find ways to bring things out of me that I hadn't previously seen. But he absolutely

did, which for me makes this one of the most memorable episodes we've ever done.

My guest today, Rick Rubin, has been a major player in the music industry for four decades.

He started Def Chem Records out of his college dorm room.

And in 2007, MTV called him the most important music producer of the last 20 years.

And he hasn't slowed down.

He's been a producer for everyone from Metallica to Adele, from Jay-Z to Johnny Cash, from Public Enemy to the Chicks.

And now, for the first time, he's put on paper the ideas driving his creative process.

The ideas in the book are like smoke.

They're very difficult to grasp.

Stuff that when you read it, you feel like you already know it.

But it's difficult to hold on to.

Welcome to people I mostlyire with Steve Levitt.

His new book is entitled, The Creative Act, A Way of Being.

And it's not at all the book you might expect from a big wig in the music industry.

It's a book about, I honestly can't even explain what the book is about, even though I loved it.

I'm going to need Rick Rubin to do that for me.

But before we get into the book, I'm hoping they'll explain to me how a white college student in the early 1980s became foundational to the development of hip-hop.

So Rick, I spent some time on the internet learning about you in preparation for our conversation.

And I actually laughed out loud at one point because the same adjective is used over and over to describe you.

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