Rick Rubin: What Jay-Z Did in 30 Minutes Left Me Speechless!

Sep 21, 2026 · 2h 46m · YouTube

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EP · The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett · Rick Rubin: What Jay-Z Did in 30 Minutes Left Me Speechless!2:46:25

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0:00Jay-Z wrote in a way that no one else wrote.

0:02All the other rappers that I worked with spent a lot of time writing lyrics, and I never saw Jay write lyrics.

0:08And when I played him the beat for 99 Problems, he said, okay, just keep playing it over and over again.

0:13And he sat in the back of the room.

0:14You could hear him mumbling or humming.

0:16After 20 or 30 minutes, he's like,

0:18Okay, I got it, ran into the other room and did the first verse.

0:21He did, let's say three takes, and then he came in and he'd listen to him.

0:24He's like, oh yeah, I think the second one's good.

0:26It just happens in his mind.

0:28And then this big list of people that you've worked with, I mean, it's just this unbelievable list.

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0:32Jay-Z, Kanye, Adele, Justin Timberlake, and Mick Jagger, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

0:37Why do you think these people call you?

0:39Because I've been making things for 40 years, and I started making music as a hobby.

0:43It ended up picking on a life of its own and becoming a business.

0:46And that list, they're not special.

0:48I would say they're ordinary people who made a decision.

0:51I think of Eminem as a good example.

0:52Eminem is someone who's always writing because he wants to be the best he could possibly be and he's insanely obsessive about that.

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