The Creative Act by Rick Rubin — a self-help manual to unleash the musical artist within

The words “artiste” and “artist” were once used interchangeably in pop music. At record labels, for instance, the A&R departments — which were responsible for talent-spotting — could mean either “artiste and repertoire” or “artists and repertoire”. Over the years, however, the term “artiste” — “a professional singer, dancer, etc”, according to the Oxford English Dictionary — has all but disappeared. Today, pop acts are always called artists.

The lexical shift has been accompanied by one in emphasis. Today’s recording artists have grown high on the A-word, as though believing themselves to be imbued by the creative spirit of Picasso. Here is Eminem explaining in 2010 why he uses so many profanities in his lyrics: “This is my art.” Justin Bieber, speaking in 2015, had the same to say about his self-proclaimed perfectionism: “This is my art.” In 2020, Lady Gaga announced of her misfiring 2013 album Artpop: “I don’t regret my art.” And so on.

The Creative Act: A Way of Being provides an insider’s guide to this travestied idea of art. It is a self-help manual about how to unleash your inner artist, written by the celebrated record producer Rick Rubin, co-founder in 1984 of the pioneering New York rap label Def Jam Recordings. Acts — sorry, artists — with whom Rubin has worked over the past 40 years include Public Enemy, Johnny Cash, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jay-Z and Adele.

He is one of the biggest figures in music production, a marquee name whose fame rivals that of the singers and bands who can afford the price of entry to his fabled Malibu studio in California. Its name is Shangri-La.

The original Shangri-La was a fictional Himalayan utopia. Rubin’s use of the name for his recording studio is no accident. Despite his ear for loud, macho music — in 1986, he produced the Beastie Boys’ frat-tastic Licensed to Ill, the first rap album to top the US charts, and also Slayer’s Reign in Blood, a heavy metal classic — the impressively bearded Rubin is something of a hippy.

Raised in Long Beach near New York, he manifests the heightened Californian consciousness of his adopted West Coast home, including regular refuge in transcendental meditation. “How does the cloud know when to rain?” he muses in The Creative Act.

“Use what’s helpful. Let go of the rest,” he states at the start of the book. The advice fits with his less-is-more production style. “Reduced by Rick Rubin” was printed on the first album that he produced, LL Cool J’s Radio, a rap landmark from 1985. But readers curious to know about his Olympian experiences in the record industry will come away disappointed. There is only the odd glimpse of his studio habits, such as turning up the sound in musicians’ headphones so they play more quietly.

A few anonymised stars are cited, such as a reference to “one of the most loved singer-songwriters of all time” dropping everything to write a song when inspiration strikes. Memoir is banal and rationed: reduced by Rick Rubin, so to speak.

Over the course of 78 brief chapters, composed with help from Rolling Stone writer Neil Strauss, he prefers to unpack his creative philosophy through an endless series of grand statements. There is much talk of oneness and universal energies, being attuned to “the Source”, from which ideas are seeded into individual consciousness.

Perhaps would-be artists will derive value from practical tips such as beating up a pillow for five minutes (it releases anger, apparently) and then filling five pages with whatever comes to mind. But, for me, the book’s utility lies in elucidating what pop stars mean when they talk about art. “Art is about the maker,” Rubin writes. “Its aim: to be an expression of who we are.” By “we”, he means the artist: “We create our art so we may inhabit it ourselves.”

Such self-serving flattery may work wonders in cajoling the best performance from a singer in a studio, but it goes no further than that.

The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin, Canongate £25/Penguin $32, 432 pages

Ludovic Hunter-Tilney is the FT’s pop music critic

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