The Creative Act: A Way of Being

Rubin’s career includes some of the most popular and groundbreaking music acts from the 1980s to the present day. J. Freedom du Lac, writing for The Washington Post, states: “You may not have heard of Rick Rubin, but you've definitely heard Rick Rubin, whose variety-pack soundtrack has become inescapable” (Freedom du Lac, J. “The ‘Song Doctor’ Is in.” The Washington Post, 2006). Rubin fashioned himself as a behind-the-scenes guru for musical artists, appropriately naming the production studio in his Malibu home “Shangri-La,” after the fictional and mystical utopia of James Hilton’s Lost Horizon (1933). The name of his studio also indicates the loose connection between mysticism, Zen Buddhist Philosophy, and Rubin’s worldview. While Rubin never explicitly states the impact of Eastern spiritual and religious thought on his creative approach, he embodies these practices in his daily and professional life. In a 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper, Rubin can be seen meditating or lying down with his eyes closed and feet bare while listening to an artist perform a recording (“Rick Rubin: The 60 Minutes Interview.” YouTube, uploaded by 60 Minutes, 2023). J. Freedom du Lac details a similar image of Rubin “in a meditative state, his eyes sealed,” in his article (Freedom du Lac). Indeed, meditation is highlighted as a method of cultivating awareness in The Creative Act, and Rubin insists that his only skills as a producer consist of quieting the mind, becoming aware of subtleties, and focusing on feeling the music in its truest expression.

The Creative Act emerges as a cultural storehouse for the methods and techniques that produced some of the greatest music before and after the turn of the century. Readers need only search Rubin online or stream his music to find countless albums and songs that became hits and/or classics. Moreover, in the text, Rubin shares anecdotes about numerous famous artists, like Eminem and Jay-Z, whose artistic masterpieces came to fruition under Rubin’s guidance. However, Rubin ignores his own cultural impact: The Creative Act doesn’t read as a specialist’s manual on music production. Instead, Rubin’s tone and style imitate that of a philosophical treatise, wherein short, aphoristic statements reveal larger truths about the nature and purpose of creativity. In Rubin’s opinion, his overall effect on music culture matters less than the individual contributions he made with artists throughout his career.

Lastly, The Creative Act exists as Rubin’s debut book and the first solo creative endeavor of his career. After four decades of guiding artists as they shape and express their own unique sounds, Rubin takes the opportunity to present only himself to the world. The result, as with his other works, is a minimalist and precise expression of himself.