I am NOT Rick Rubin
I can already feel the Rick Rubin allegations coming.
Let me put it to rest before it gets out of hand.
Yes, I think Rick Rubin is a smart guy.
Yes, I think his methods are effective and underutilized.
He’s brought a buddhist-y touch to music making that has unlocked the creative potential for countless globally successful musicians.
But he hasn’t scaled it.
Blessed and cursed with business brain, I intend on creating a Rick Rubin-style music incubator where anyone, not just major label artists, can benefit from similar methods.
Right now, the norm is for bands to form and figure it out on their own. There’s no playbook or guidance. The band is alone, forced to find their own way, moving from venue to venue in the hope they’ll stumble upon clarity and progress before they burn out.
But now there’s a music incubator where anyone off the street can come and jumpstart their music career. A meritocratic place where musicians can have fun while getting creative and leaving their comfort zone in order to make the art this world needs.
A place where those who are most involved get paid an equal share from one big pot and set their own goals to keep them accountable.
I think the kind of music that comes out of an environment like that would be amazing.
I think Rick Rubin would approve — and he might even want to be involved if he wasn’t busy living the greatest ego trip imaginable. Chilling in a Malibu mansion, working with world-class artists in a million dollar studio.
We don’t have a million dollar studio or a million dollar marketing budget, but we do have the types of people Rick works with: people at the forefront of culture.
These people are at the D.C. Incubator, carving a path towards a career in music. And in the process, discovering it’s not about the music, man.
It’s about the friends we made along the way.
Who cares if you can make good music? It’s about how you make it.
Who cares if you succeed? It’s about how you succeed.
This is the paradoxical key to making good music that Mr. Rubin understands.
If you try too hard, you won’t perform as well.
If your goal is success, it will be harder to find it.
The journey is the destination.
There’s a reason so many artists who get reach the pinnacle of success get depressed, go crazy and/or stop growing.
As I’ve learned first hand, there’s no winning in capitalism.
Incubator strives to exist outside of the capitalistic mindset as much as possible.
But despite all this high mindedness about enjoying the journey, I’m stuck with the business brain of a coked out startup founder and have an incessant need to innovate.
But I don’t want to innovate as a business, I want to innovate as a community.
I want to increase accessibility to Rick Rubin-style workflows, democratize it and apply those principles beyond music because, again, it’s not about the music, man.
It’s about the friends we made along the way.
While I may have a similar philosophy to him, that’s purely a coincidence.
The difference between he and I is that I’m trying to create something that doesn’t need me, that can outlive me. Whereas he’s created a career where he’s at the center.
