Producer extraordinaire Rick Rubin played a pivotal role in popularizing hip-hop with his groundbreaking work with Run-DMC, Public Enemy, and LL Cool J. One of his key contributions to the genre is his work on Licensed to Ill, the Beastie Boys' debut album, which gave rise to the hard rock crossover No Sleep Till Brooklyn.
While Kerry King's blistering solo steals the spotlight, Rubin holds his own on rhythm guitar – including the now-iconic opening riff.
“It would have been a Gibson SG Junior,” Rubin tells Rick Beato, when asked what guitar he used for the session. “It was the guitar I had in my punk rock band, and that was still my guitar – and that's the guitar when my apartment got broken into New York, got stolen.”
Though Rubin describes his guitar part as “pretty rudimentary,” it helped set the tone for the rap-rock fusion from the start, and was designed to complement the rap and flow.
“That was recorded at Chung King House of Metal [the acclaimed New York studio that operated between 1986 and 2015, frequented by countless notable hip hop acts],” he recalls. “I think our focus really was on the words and the vibe of the raps. And in this case, it was just like a rock track. It was more like a vehicle for the vocals.”
According to Rubin, the blend of rap and rock felt “completely natural,” resulting from him being an avid fan of both genres.
“It was just no-one had done it. But it wasn't extraordinary in any way,” he says matter-of-factly. “In reality, a lot of people listen to all different kinds of music. This is the result of that, and the fact that it was popular tells you there were a lot of people who liked those two things, too.”
Despite Rubin's assessment of his own skills, his guitar performances inspired a generation of artists, including The Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins, who cited Rubin as “one of the most inspirational guitar players of my childhood”.
Elsewhere in Beato's Rick Rubin interview, the producer reveals how he shaped the sound of Slayer’s Reign in Blood record by “playing Metallica as an example of what I thought was wrong”.
