Rick Rubin on the “essential” power of James Brown
From day one, genres have never meant anything to Rick Rubin. Whether it was working with Johnny Cash on some of his later work or getting acts like the Beastie Boys off the ground, a good song trumped everything else when it came to Rubin, leading to him boasting a strong lineup of bands in his discography from Slayer to Tom Petty to Red Hot Chili Peppers. Before any of the core influences seeped in, though, Rubin was drawn to the swinging rhythm of James Brown.
Long before he got involved in hip-hop, Rubin was always listening to the early days of Brown’s work, bringing together the elements of funk music and putting every ounce of himself into his songs. Although Brown’s flavour of music was vastly different than acts like The Beatles, Rubin never saw music in those terms, remarking on the This Little Light podcast: “It was just another flavour. It wasn’t that I liked that style of music. It wasn’t the case of any of the groups I worked. I liked what these people do. It was so essential what he was doing.”
Throughout his career, Brown’s inherent sense of rhythm would seep into other acts like Parliament-Funkadelic, but Rubin always stood by Brown for his consistency with his sense of rhythm. While other artists could find ways to incorporate Brown’s influence into their sound, Rubin appreciated how singular he was, eventually venturing through the night when he was a kid to see him. Even though Rubin said he was one of the only white kids in the audience, it didn’t matter once the music started, moving that part of his body that made him want to move.
Once the sounds of hip-hop started to become more widespread, the appreciation for Brown’s music started up all over again, with songs like ‘Funky Drummer’ becoming some of the most overused samples in hip-hop. Then again, Rubin was never looking to imitate his idol on record.
When approaching his role as a producer, Rubin always talked about wanting to match Brown’s feeling on record, telling Rolling Stone, “I wanted to make records that felt as good as Brown’s, and I didn’t want to do it by sampling him. For me, it was about the feeling you get when you listen to his grooves.”
That philosophy wasn’t just reserved for hip-hop or rap-rock, either. While it would be easy to translate that feel-good spirit onto a record by Red Hot Chili Peppers or Run-DMC, Rubin was interested in bringing that same spirit to every record he made. Throughout the 1990s, while working with Tom Petty or Johnny Cash, he was still about capturing a performance that moved something in the listeners’ gut rather than trying to copy what someone else had done.
Regardless of how he incorporated the lessons from James Brown, the spirit of his music has been instilled in Rubin every time he goes into the studio to work on another project. Although he might be a fixture of the sounds of funk and R&B, Rubin puts Brown on the same pedestal as music legends from other genres, saying: “James Brown is like Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash is considered one of the kings of country music, but there are a lot of people who like Johnny but don’t like country music. It’s the same with James Brown and R&B”.
