Rick Rubin and rapper Jay-Z in 2004
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Even jaded pros speak with squishy, New Age adulation of his mysterious abilities to make other people better, a reputation enhanced by the Bhagwanesque curtain of hair across his face. But Rubin, 43, feels he's credited with more magic powers than he actually possesses. "So much of what we do is just common sense," he says. Rubin co-founded Def Jam Records with Russell Simmons out of his New York University dorm room in 1984 and had a huge influence on the early history of rap (that's him as DJ Double R on the Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill), but his formative experience as a producer came during a long-ago session with the Bangles. "Just before recording, one of the girls completely broke down," Rubin recalls. "She said, 'I don't think I can do this. I've never played on one of our records before.' Someone made her believe she wasn't good enough to play on her own records. It just made me realize that the music business is lousy at nourishing creative people but that my personality is pretty well suited for it."
Rubin does have a gift for setting people at ease. In the Malibu, Calif., home he shares with his girlfriend, he shuffles around barefoot in loose khakis and a white T shirt, trailed step for step by a lazy-looking dreadlocked puli. He has three laptops full of music in his living room but can't work iTunes on any of them, and when friends stop by, he greets them with well-intended but lung-collapsing hugs. He's your classic effortlessly amiable clumsy dude--a metaphorical Buddha in a terry-cloth robe.
But Zen as he is, Rubin is ruthless with his professional time. He's inundated with requests for his services, so he asks most prospects to drop by and play him whatever songs they've been writing. This eliminates most applicants. Few pop musicians, it turns out, are used to regular writing, and even fewer show enough promise in their songs to interest him. "One of Rick's favorite phrases is 'metaphor deficient,'" says Rock. "If people write things that are metaphor deficient, even he can't help them."
Timberlake passed muster on a piano at Rubin's house ("That kid is no joke," says Rubin), while the Dixie Chicks, who were coming off their career-threatening Bush-bashing incident and didn't have much music to play, piqued his interest over sushi. "It was a weird time for us, obviously," says Robison. "If he had come in like a car salesman and said, 'I can totally hear a sound for you all,' we would have been put off. But he said, 'I don't know what this record will be, but you guys have something to say, and it'll make itself clear as we work.' Then he made us work 10 times harder than we've ever worked before."