Kanye West drove Def Jam executives “crazy” with last-minute changes on “Yeezus” which were helped along by producer Rick Rubin who joined the fray just weeks before the album dropped, as Page Six previously revealed.
Now, in an interview with The Daily Beast, the legendary producer explains how Kanye begged for his help on “Yeezus” and the panicked process of completing the album.
“He called up and said, ‘Can I just come play my album?’ And I said, ‘Sure.’ I always like to hear what he’s working on. So he came over to my house in Malibu. We listened. I thought I was going to hear a finished album, but actually we listened to probably three and a half hours of works in progress,” Rubin said.
The Def Jam Records co-founder explained that the album at that point sounded “kind of meandering, unfocused, usually without his vocals,” adding, “I assumed that the album was scheduled to come out next year.”
“So I said, ‘When are you thinking of finishing up?’ And he said, ‘It’s coming out in five weeks.’ Like completely confident and fine.”
West then convinced Rubin to ditch his vacation plans to fix, shape and finish the album in the short and “panicked” period of time.
“To me it seemed impossible what he was asking,” he said. “We ended up working probably 15 days, 16 days, long hours, no days off, 15 hours a day. I was panicked the whole time.”
According to Rubin, Yeezy even flew to Milan for a baby shower three days before he had to turn the record in, even though they had five songs that still needed vocals, and two more songs still needed lyrics.
The task, however, was quickly completed by a nonchalant West after he got back to the studio.
“It probably ended up taking two hours,” said Rubin. “Five vocals. He wrote two lyrics on the spot.”