Legendary producer Rick Rubin honored by Recording Academy

This year’s Grammys celebrations kicked off Thursday night by saluting a guru who shaped not just a few Grammy nominees’ careers, but their entire industry. The legendary producer Rick Rubin was honored by the Producers & Engineers Wing of the Recording Academy for his many achievements in music, joined by his A-list peers and past collaborators.

The ninth annual event, held at Los Angeles recording studio the Village, commemorated Rubin’s achievements with a night of speeches and remembrances about his decades-long career, from co-founding Def Jam records to producing acclaimed music for everyone from Slayer and Johnny Cash to Lady Gaga and Kanye, including rumored work on West’s new album The Life of Pablo.

“With unparalleled cross-genre success, he dedicated his career to helping artists realize their full potential,” said Neil Portnow, Recording Academy President, in a speech to the crowd. “His work with the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Slayer, Johnny Cash … Rick Rubin helped artists be the best that they could be, and fully [impacted] the music vision of the entire world.”

Portnow’s comments came in between speeches by Rubin collaborator Jimmy Jam, who entertained the crowd with stories about a college-aged Rubin hoarding promo CDs, including one sent to him by an enterprising then-unknown rapper called LL Cool J.

“The kind of things that we both enjoy expressing and feeling while making music about isn’t based on any genre — it transcends hard rock, traditional music, it was just a philosophy of how we liked to be in the studio,” said Josh Groban before the show, who worked with Rubin on his 2010 album Illuminations.

Rubin stayed true to his idiosyncratic reputation at the event; wearing a t-shirt and Teva-style shoes and sporting his signature scraggly beard, the producer would not go on stage to accept his award, instead having Portnow bring it down to him.

Opting not to speak or perform, Rubin instead used the event to introduce the music of two young artists with whom he’s currently collaborating: the blazing folk of 19-year-old Coltor Wall, and the powerful spoken word performances of the English poet Kate Tempest.

Rubin joins past Producers & Engineers Wing honorees including Nile Rodgers, Neil Young, T Bone Burnett and Jimmy Iovine.