Two weeks after he graduated from college last year, he and Simmons signed a multi-album deal with CBS, which each party claims is the largest arrangement of its kind - “in the millions,” according to Rubin who won’t be any more specific. This is peculiar praise for a wealthy, straight-A suburbanite who borrowed money from his father to start his record company while still living in a NYU dorm.
RICK RUBIN DEF JAM MOVIE
Russell Simmons, Rubin’s 28-year-old black partner in Def Jam and the rap impresario whose life the movie Krush Groove was based on, puts it this way: “I’m sure Rick would like me to tell you what a bastard he is.” “Rick’s a dick,” says Adrock a white rapper in the Beastie Boys and son of playwright Israel Horovitz. Casting himself and his dad as father-and-son racist gangsters, Rubin relishes his status as a young white man traveling in black circles who can do no wrong. Foremost is the writing, directing, and producing of Def Pictures’ first feature, Tougher Than Leather, a spaghetti-western/film noir/blaxpoitation movie starring Run-D.M.C. That sort of currency has inspired Mick Jagger to ask Rubin to produce songs for his next solo LP, an invitation Rubin says he’ll accept if he can find the time. Using the technology of their times, they both have made music for and often by teens. Both have an overpowering studio style: Spector with his wall-of-sound and Rubin with his fastidious b-boy blast, a lean, ornery orchestration of rap and heavy metal - his two favorite forms of rock ‘n’ roll.Īnd like Spector, Rubin started out as an adolescent prodigy and almost immediately went on to gain wealth and behind-the-scenes power. Cool J’s Radio), and more on the way (new releases by the Beastie Boys and Slayer) - the comparison holds. If he hasn’t yet charted as many times as Spector - Rubin has been behind the sales of about three million records, including a top 10 single (Run D.M.C.’s summer hit, “Walk This Way”), a double-platinum album (Run-D.M.C.’s Raising Hell), one gold album (L.L. Both are eccentric, Jewish, intimidating. Now 23 himself, rock’s hottest producer, and an owner of his own record company, Def Jam, Rick Rubin is the closest pop music has come this decade to producing a conceptualist who can compare to Spector in studio wizardry, business acumen, and steam-rolling ego.
In 1964, Frederick Jay Rubin was one year old. Wolfe described Spector as a jittery, Jewish, misunderstood boy-genius - the first youth to create a multimillion-dollar music empire for the pop of it. The Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ ” was on its way to number one and Spector’s label, Philles, was in its hit-making prime. In 1964, Tom Wolfe wrote “The First Tycoon of Teen” about the 23-year-old Phil Spector.