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the island, just 140 miles long, is wrapped in a histo these turquois waters, according to legend, were the birthplace of aphrodite. but today the playground of the god has become a place for russian oligarchs with ties to vladimir putin hide billions. he certainly doesn't look like a record executive. and, as we found out, rick rubin doesn't think like one either. >> the audience comes last because the audience doesn't know what they want. the audience only knows what's come before. >> isn't the whole music business built around trying to figure out what somebody likes? >> maybe for someone else it is. but it's not for me. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bill whitaker. >> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm sharyn alfonsi.

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last month, the nearest star to the earth was in california. in a laboratory, for the first time, the world's largest lasers forced atoms of hydrogen to fuse together in the same kind of energy producing reaction that fires the sun. it lasted less than a billionth of a second. but, after six decades of toil and failure, the lawrence livermore national laboratory

proved it could be done. if fusion becomes commercial power one day, it would be endless and carbon free. in other words, it would change human destiny. as you'll see, there's far to go. but after december's breakthrough, we were invited to tour the lab and meet the team that brought star power down to earth. >> uncontrolled fusion is easy - mastered so long ago the films are in black and white. fusion is what a hydrogen bomb does - releasing energy by forcing atoms of hydrogen to fuse together. what's been impossible is harnessing the fires of armageddon into something useful. the u.s. department of energy's lawrence livermore national laboratory helps maintain nuclear weapons and experimes

an hour east of san francisco, we met livermore's director, kim budil, in the lab that made history, the national ignition facility. >> the national ignition facility is the world's largest, most energetic laser. it was built starting in the 1990s, to create conditions in the laboratory that had previously only been accessible in the most extreme objects in the universe, like the center of giant planets, or the sun, or in operating nuclear weapons. and the goal was to really be able to study that kind of very high-energy, high-density condition in a lot of detail. >> the national ignition facility, or n.i.f., was built for three and a half billion dollars to ignite self-sustaining fusion. they tried nearly 200 times over 13 years. but like a car with a weak battery, the atomic "engine" would never turn over. >> n.i.f. drew some nicknames. >> it did.

for many years, the "not ignition facility," the "never ignition facility." more recently, the "nearly ignition facility." so, this recent event has really put the ignition in the n.i.f. >> ignition means igniting a fusion reaction that puts out more energy than the lasers put in. >> so, if you can get it hot enough, dense enough, fast enough, and hold it together long enough, the fusion reactions start to self-sustain. and that's really what happened here on december 5th. >> main laser operation will begin in approximately one minute. >> last month, the laser shot fired from this control room, put two units of energy into the experiment, atoms began fusing, and about three units of energy came out. tammy ma, who leads the lab's laser fusion research initiatives, got the call while waiting for a plane. >> and i burst into tears. it was just tears of joy.

and i actually physically started shaking and -- and jumping up and down in, you know, at the gate before everybody boards. everybody was, like, "what is that crazy woman doin'?" >> tammy ma is crazy about engineering. >> and that's another one of our sensors... >> she showed us why the problem of fusion would bring anyone to tears. first, there's the energy required, which is delivered by lasers in these tubes that are longer than a football field. >> and how many are there altogether? >> 192 total lasers. >> each one of these lasers is one of the most energetic in the world, and you have 192 of them. >> that's pretty cool, right? >> well, pretty hot actually - millions of degrees - which is why they use keys to lock up the lasers. >> shot director? ready. >> the beams strike with a power 1,000 times greater than the entire national power grid.

>> ...3...2...1...shot. >> your lights don't go out at home when they take a shot, because these capacitors store the electricity. in the tubes, the laser beams amplify by racing back and forth. and the flash is a fraction of a second. >> we have to get to these incredible conditions: hotter, denser than the center of the sun, and so we need all of that laser energy to get to these very high-energy densities. >> all that wallop vaporizes a target nearly too small to see. >> can i hold this thing? >> absolutely. >> unbelievable. absolutely amazing. >> michael stadermann's team builds the hollow target shells that are ld 430 ees bew ze.

>> the precision that we need for making these shells is extreme. the shells are almost perfectly round. they have a roughness that is a hundred times better than a mirror. >> what do you think about that? >> if it wasn't smoother than a mirror, imperfections would make the implosion of atoms uneven, causing a fusion fizzle. >> so these need to be as close to perfect as humanly possible. >> that's right. that's right. and we do think they are among the most perfect items that we have on earth. >> stadermann's lab pursues perfection by vaporizing carbon and forming the shell out of diamond. they build 1,500 a year to make 150 nearly perfect. >> all the components are brought together under the microscope itself. and then the assembler uses electromechanical stages to put the parts where they're supposed to go - move them together - and then we apply glue using a hair. >> a hair?

>> yeah. usually something like an eyelash or similar, or cat whisker. >> you apply glue with a cat whisker? >> that's right. >> why does it have to be so small? >> the laser gives us only a finite amount of energy. and to drive a bigger capsule, we would need more energy. so it's a constraint of the facility that you've seen that is very large. and despite its big size, this is about what we can drive with it. >> the target could be larger, but then the laser would have to be larger. >> that is correct. >> on december 5th, they used a thicker target so it would hold its shape longer, and they figured out how to boost the power of the laser shot without damaging the lasers. >> so this is an example of a target before the shot... >> tammy ma showed us an intact target assembly. that diamond shell you saw is inside that silver colored cylinder.

this assembly goes into a blue vacuum chamber, three stories tall. it's hard to see here because it's bristling with lasers and instruments. this instrument they call dante because, they told us, it measures the fires of hell. one physicist said, "you should see the target we blasted december 5th." which made us ask, "could we?" >> have you seen this before? >> this is the first time i'm seeing it. >> for tammy ma, and for the world, this is the first look at what's left of the target assembly that changed history - an artifact like bell's first phone or edison's light bulb. >> this thing is going to end up in the smithsonian. >> the target cylinder was blasted to oblivion, the copper support that held it was peeled backward. >> the explosion on the end of this was hotter than the sun.

>> it was hotter than the center of the sun. we were able to achieve temperatures that were the hottest in the entire solar system. >> which would make an astronomical change in electric power. unlike today's nuclear plants - which split atoms apart - fusing them is many times more powerful, with little long-term radiation. and it's easy to turn off - so no meltdowns. but getting from the first ignition to a power plant will be hard. >> how many shots do you take in a day? >> we take, on average, a little more than one shot per day. >> if this was theoretically a commercial power plant, how many shots a day would be required? >> approximately ten shots per second would be required. and the other big challenge, of course, is not just increasing the repetition rate, but also getting the gain out of the targets to go up to about a

factor of 100. >> not oy thti tuce 0 times more erbupo need 900,000 perfect diamond shells a day. also, the lasers would have to be much more efficient. remember, december's breakthrough put two units of energy in and got three out? well, it took 300 units of power to fire the lasers. by that standard, it was 300 in, three out. that detail was not front and center at the department of energy's december news conference which fused the advance with an unlikely timeline. >> today's announcement is a huge step forward to the president's goal of achieving commercial fusion within a decade. >> when you heard that president biden's goal was commercial

fusion power in a decade, you thought what? >> i thought it was nonsense. >> charles seife is a trained mathematician, science author and professor at new york university who wrote a 2008 book on the hyping of fusion power. >> i don't want to diminish the fact that this is a real achievement. ignition is a milestone that people have been trying for -- to do for years. i'm afraid that there's so many technical hurdles, even after this great achievement, that ten years is a pipe dream. >> those hurdles, seife says, include scaling up livermore's achievement. the december shot generated about enough excess power to boil two pots of coffee. the hurdles might be overcome, seife says, but not soon. >> i have a running bet that we're not going to have it by 2050. >> still, betting against

charles seife's prophecy, are more than 30 private companies designing various approaches to fusion power - including using magnets, not lasers. $3 billion in private money flowed into those companies in the last 13 months, including bets by bill gates and google. amid all this speculation, lawrence livermore's director, kim budil, is certain of one thing. >> can you do it again? >> absolutely. >> they're going to try again next month. budil agrees the obstacles are enormous. but she told us commercial fusion power could be demonstrated in 20 years or so, with enough funding and dedication. we likened the first ignition to the first wright brothers flight which covered only 120 feet. >> it's one thing to believe that the science is possible, that the conditions can be created. it's another to see it in action.

and it really is a remarkable feeling after working for 60 years to get to this point - to have first taken that first flight. >> it was 44 years from a puddle jump to supersonic flight. whether fusion power is 10 or 50 years away is now mainly an engineering problem. lawrence livermore has proven - that from a machine - a star is born. type 2 diabetes? discover the ozempic® tri-zone. in my ozempic® tri-zone, i lowered my a1c, cv risk, and lost some weight. in studies, the majority of people reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. ozempic® lowers the risk of major cardiovascular events such as stroke, heart attack, or death in adults also with known heart disease. and you may lose weight. adults lost up to 14 pounds.

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low blood pressure, kidney problems, or high blood potassium. ask your doctor about entresto. after russia launched its invasion of ukraine, the u.s. and its allies responded with sanctions targeting companies, oligarchs and officials with ties to russian president vladimir putin. headlines trumpeted the trophies

of russian oligarchs seized throughout europe - yachts in italy, villas in the south of france and priceless art in germany. but those fixed assets are relatively easy to locate. finding the billions of dollars oligarchs have stashed around the world is proving to be more difficult. how do you hide that much money from an international community that says it's determined to find it? the question led us to cyprus - a tiny mediterranean island at the crossroads of europe, asia, and the middle east. today, the once bustling vacation spot is in the middle of an international game of hide and seek. a poet once described cyprus as a "golden green leaf thrown into the sea." the island, just 140 miles long, is wrapped in sandy beaches, and a rich history. these turquois waters, according to legend, were the birthplace of aphrodite. but today, the "playground of

the gods" has become a playland for wealthy russians. we headed down the southern coast of the island to limassol. before the war, it was a favorite spot for russians to thaw. a three-hour flight from moscow, limassol's mix of designer shops, fur stores, cyrillic signs and stores serving caviar earned it the nickname - "moscow on the med." but alexandra attalides, a member of the cyprus parliament, says after the fall of the soviet union, the oligarchs who descended on the island weren't here for the beaches. >> there are beautiful beaches in spain, in portugal, in greece. there are a lot of beautiful beaches. i think that they found a fertile ground here that helped them. >> how did the russian oligarchs use cyprus? >> after 1989 when they stole the property of the russian people and they started to build their empires. and then maybe they were afraid

that someday something would happen, so they wanted their assets to be safe outside russia. so they were looking for tax havens, and we had a very low tax rate at the time. >> they got a place to hide their assets. >> yeah. >> cyprus historically built a financial system to attract overseas wealth. >> maira martini is an analyst for transparency international, a nonprofit that tracks money laundering around the world. she says for decades, if you were an oligarch, or just a shady character looking to hide your rubles, cyprus was hard to beat. >> it offers the secrecy and still security, and that's what criminals and corrupt individuals are usually looking for. >> what do you mean it offers secrecy? >> so, in cyprus, for many years youl aacco without having a lot of questions asked. you can open a company without having a lot of questions asked, meaning you can put the money

there without needing to tell who you are, where the money comes from. >> cyprus became as famous for its opaque banking as its clear water. soon, like sun-starved tourists, foreign money started pouring into the island. >> by 2012, the country of about a million residents had amassed bank deposits of nearly 72 billion euros. about 30% of those bank deposits came from russian nationals. but in 2013, the tide turned. the debt crisis in neighboring greece threatened to sink the cyprus economy. lawmakers, fearing the country would lose all that russian capital, pushed a scheme other countries had used to attract wealth - a "citizenship by investment" program. >> from the beginning, for me, this was unacceptable. >> here's how it worked. any foreigner who invested more than 2 million euros in the country, typically, buying real etate, could get a cypriot passport...a coveted possession because cyprus is part of the

european union. >> so the people who are buying the passport of cyprus, they were buying the european passport. they were buying an open door to 27 countries. >> from 2013 to 2020, cyprus issued almost 7,000 of those "golden passports" - nearly half to russians. suddenly, the skyline of limassol was injected with high-rise luxury apartments and stores with uber wealthy russians. >> you could see them walking around like princesses, moving in the most expensive shops. they have their business, they have their houses, they have luxury houses. >> but in 2020, an undercover investigation by al jazeera revealed corruption in the passport program. >> no passport case is clean... >> cyprus had illegally issued hundreds of "golden passports" - some, to criminals and fugitives. after protests and under

pressure from the e.u., the cyp program weeks later. >> when you give passports to people that later we realize are criminals, then you open the door of europe to criminals. >> the golden passports also opened the door of europe to russian elites. "60 minutes" has learned that at least a dozen of these now sanctioned russian oligarchs were issued "golden passports." among them, igor kesaev who owned a russian arms factory. billionaire alexander ponomarenko, who was the chairman of the board of russia's biggest airport and who the u.s. government calls one of putin's "enablers." and aluminum tycoon oleg deripaska, a part of putin's inner circle. according to the u.s. treasury, he's been investigated internationally for, among other things, money laundering, illegal wiretapping and extortion...accusations he

denies. maira martini told us a cypriot passport could make it easier for those sanctioned oligarchs to buy property and move assets and that the cozy relationship between wealthy russians and cyprus is raising concern internationally. >> if you're a small country that is very dependent on foreign money coming from one single country, this also even might create a conflict, right? >> really sanctions are only as strong as the weakest link. is cyprus the weakest link here? >> i think cyprus is one of the weakest links. >> cyprus minister of finance constantinos petrides disagrees. we first spoke to him in september. his office oversees efforts to freeze the cyprus assets of anyone sanctioned by the e.u. >> who has been sanctioned, specifically, individuals within cyprus? >> regarding the citizenship, i think about ten people were found under restrictive measures.

and the council of ministers has initiated a process to revoke their passports. >> the ten people that have been sanctioned, who are they? >> i don't have any, any names now. >> but would you be able to provide us with that list of names if we asked for it? >> i'm not sure. i would have to -- i would have to see. >> we sent minister petrides a request for those names and the list of any assets of sanctioned russians that cyprus has seized or frozen. in a series of emails, over the last three months, petrides office responded that due to european data protection rules, "no detailed list can be made public." but other e.u. countries have publicized detailed lists of their actions. >> so is the expectation that everyone should just trust the cyprus government that they're implementing the sanctions that they're supposed to on russians? >> i'm not saying that everybody should trust the cyprus government. the cyprus government does not need somebody to trust it. we have the reports of the

mutual assessment for cyprus 2019 that shows all the progress made in the past years. i think that we have proved as cyprus that we are a reliable member of the e.u. we do admit that in the past there have been mistakes. but cyprus has also been unfairly stigmatized. >> petrides told us the passports of sanctioned oligarchs are in the "process" of being revoked and said cyprus has seized 105 million euros of russian deposits...a big number, but just a fraction of the estimated 5.6 billion euros of russian deposits made in cyprus last year. we also asked minister petrides about this. the dozens of cyprus properties and active shell companies we were able to trace back to sanctioned russians. he told us any cypriot company with an e.u. sanctioned oligarch listed as the owner has been placed under "increased scrutiny." but often, russian oligarchs

don't list their names anywhere near their assets. take the case of roman abramovich and his planes. according to u.s. investigators, were hidden under five shl companies, stacked like russian nesting dolls, with addresses in the bvi, and british island of jersey...all leading to an anonymous trust... in cyprus. but it wasn't cyprus authorities who ultimately moved to seize the planes. it was prosecutors from the u.s. department of justice. >> there's always been dark corners of the international financial system. and kind of like water finding a crack, that's where the criminal networks will go. >> u.s. deputy attorney general lisa monaco is in charge of the department of justice's "kleptocapture unit," tasked with finding the assets of sanctioned oligarchs hidden around the world. >> it used to be, you know, the guy fleeing with suitcases of money. that's not the case anymore. >> it is not.

>>t rys . it is yachts. it is layered. and so how do you keep up with it? >> even the most notorious actors, whether it's the mafia, whether it's rogue regimes, the best tool we have is following the money. >> the money has led doj investigators around the world and closer to home. it turns out, like the tourists who visit cyprus, dirty money doesn't stay on the island forever. typically, it's "washed" and invested in other western economies. investigators say that's one way oleg deripaska has been able to skirt sanctions. >> what the task force exposed was the network of enablers, and money launderers, and facilitators who helped him hide his wealth in real estate here in washington, d.c. and in manhattan. >> in the united states? >> in the united states, in artwork, in vanity businesses, including a music studio in beverly hills.

>> in their case, the doj alleges that in 2020, oleg deripaska arranged for one of his children to be born in the united states - even though he was under u.s. sanctions. >> he has a child that's a u.s. citizen now? >> he was able to do that in one instance. and then in the second instance, that was not accomplished. >> because u.s. customs stopped it. the government case details how, as the war in ukraine intensified, deripaska used a "cyprus" company to arrange "travel on a private jet from russia to los angeles" for his pregnant girlfriend, moving money to rent a home for her in beverly hills. but when she landed in los angeles this summer, she was stopped by customs officers. >> deripaska, his girlfriend, and the u.s. resident who helped him are now charged with sanctions evasion. they are not in custody, but the doj has announced plans to seize

his u.s. properties worth an estimated $70 million. since the start of the war, the u.s. has moved to seize more than a billion dollars of sanctioned assets around the world. >> so what should happen to those assets? >> we are seeking the authority from congress to allow us to use the proceeds for the benefit of the ukrainian people. >> oleg deripaska has publicly criticized the economic impact the war in ukraine could have on russia. but u.s. investigators maintain he is a "putin cronie" who is "propping up russia's war machine." back in cyprus, "60 minutes" found a villa in this seaside complex, offices in this building and more than a dozen "active" shell companies linked to oleg deripaska. the cyprus government will not say whether it has frozen any of those assets.

how u.s. prosecutors seize russian assets. >> we'll go as far as fiji if we have to. >> at 60minutesovertime.com, sponsored by pfizer. you know that unwelcome guest everyone wishes would just leave already? that's covid-19. that's why i got the new updated booster, designed to help protect against recent omicron variants. [slice] got it?

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in fact, before our interview even began, rubin crossed his legs, closed his eyes, and then suggested we do the same. >> should we spend two minutes eyes closed meditating before we start? >> sure. >> just to, like, really get here? >> sure. >> let's do that. >> that's a first. does meditation help you creatively? >> it clears the distractions. say the distractions can get in the way with a direct connection to the creative force. ♪ kick it! ♪ >> rick rubin is definitely in tune with his creative force. over the last four decades he's produced albums and songs with more than 120 artists. >> just keep them really simple. i'm thinking maybe we start

acapella. ♪ i got 99 problems ♪ ♪ styling ♪ he's helped launch careers ll cool j and public enemy among them... ♪ public enemy number one ♪ ...and is often the go-to guy for artists at the top of their game, like adele. but exactly what he does, and how is difficult to describe. >> do you play instruments? >> barely. >> do you know how to work a soundboard? >> no. i have no technical ability. and i know nothing about music. [ laughter ] >> you must know something. >> well, i know what i like and what i don't like. and i'm, i'm decisive about what i like and what i don't like. >> so what are you being paid for? >> the confidence that i have in my taste and my ability to express what i feel has proven helpful for artists.

>> artists are eager to make the pilgrimage to shangri la studios in malibu to work with rubin. >> how many studios do you have here? >> there's the main control room here with the live room. >> the place is minimalist, to say the least. there's no mirrors, no tvs, no signs of rick rubin's extraordinary success. >> i'd never been in a recording studio where there's not gold records and grammys. do you have, like, a tiny ego room somewhere? >> i don't. i used to send them all to my parents. [ laughter ] and i don't know where they are now. it's a distraction. if you start thinking about doing something to achieve that, then you're not focused on this - making this beautiful thing. it undermines the purity of the project. >> we're going back to the key and we're going back to the tempo. >> rubin has referred to himself aucer - instead of a producer. >> i like the idea of getting the point across with the least amount of information possible. >> and that's what you're doing

in a recording studio? you're listening to music, to sound, and trying to strip it? >> just to see what's -- what is actually necessary. getting it down to that essence to start with is really helpful in understanding what it is. >> on our first day, he brought us in on a jam session with saxophone great kamasi washington. >> what are you listening for? like right now, there's, what, chimes, piano. >> yeah. i'm not listening to any of those things. [ laughter ] >> okay. what are you listening to? >> i'm listening to the feeling. >> how do you listen to a feeling? >> well, my body's moving. i feel that melody awaken something in me. there's something familiar about it, but i don't think i've heard it before. the feeling of familiarity is a good feeling. >> if you haven't noticed by now, rick rubin talks a lot about feelings.

>> my aim is not to have my presence felt. unless it's necessary, unless it's helpful. >> his presence is laid back, literally. he usually listens lying down and barefoot, with his eyes shut. you might think he was napping. >> i try to listen as closely as i possibly can. and when my eyes are closed, i feel like i'm there with the music. >> it may not seem like work, but rubin hears things and senses things other producers don't. back in 1993, a few stray guitar chords on a tom petty demo tape caught his attention. >> tom sent me demos of about five new songs, and none of them really struck me, honestly. none of them spoke to me. but that guitar riff that opens the song was something that was played between two of the songs. just like a warmup. ♪ i drove to tom's house and i played it for him.

i said, "listen to this piece. i feel like this is the best thing on the tape." "write this one." and that turned into "the last dance with mary jane." ♪ the last dance with mary jane ♪ ♪ one more time to kill the pain ♪ >> that's got to be hard, though. you come back saying, "you know, i like the thing that happened accidently in between two of these songs." that's a tough sell sometimes, isn't it? >> i'm not trying to sell it. [ laughter ] i'm just sharing what i'm feeling. you know? like, if they don't want to do it, it's fine. >> rubin is now sharing what he's learned in a book, "the creative act: a way of being," out this week. it's his guide to harnessing creativity, something he figured out how to do his sophomore year at new york university in 1982. his parents wanted him to be a lawyer, but rubin had another idea. >> you decide the dorm is going to be the studio. >> it's going to be the deejay booth, drum machine, preproduction music area, yes. >> did your roommate have any say in that?

>> he didn't, but he loved it. >> he was going out every night. he wasn't into booze or drugs, he says, the music is what drew him, and hip-hop was just starting to make some noise. >> what was it about hip-hop that attracted you, this kid from long island at nyu? >> it wasn't made by people who went to the music conservatory. it was made by kids who felt something. >> but the few hip-hop records rubin could get his hands on didn't sound like what he heard in the clubs. >> in a hip-hop club, the music was made by the deejay, scratching records, or playing break beats, or using drum machines, or some combination. and then there would be a rapper or a group of rappers. and the records that came out were always a band playing. >> and that wasn't what, to me, hip-hop was. >> so rubin persuaded rapper t la rock and deejay jazzy jay

to let him produce a record that captured the way they sounded live. the stripped-down sound got noticed, and rubin teamed up with music manager russell simmons. >> you had a meeting in your dorm room? >> i had all my meetings at the dorm room. i met with run-d.m.c. at the dorm room, i met with everybody at the dorm room. >> that dorm became the headquarters for def jam recordings. >> did new york university know that you were operating - not just a side hustle? like, you know, that you were operating a business out of the school? >> eventually it became an issue because over time as def jam grew, the entire mailroom was filled with boxes of records to be shipped out. >> his senior year, rubin was working with run-d.m.c. the beastie boys, and a teenage ll cool j. and after he graduated, def jam landed a seven-figure distribution deal with columbia records. >> rubin was always looking for new talent. he heard a jingle from a college radio show and tracked down the

rapper, chuck d., who wrote it, and convinced him to sign with def jam. outside that's how the groundbreaking group public enemy got started. >> what kind of an impact do you think rick had on hip-hop? >> oh, pshh, rick rubin is one of the pillar stones of hip-hop. he didn't pioneer the production, he didn't pioneer the rap, but he pioneered a certain energy for it to be daring. ♪ >> rubin left def jam in 1988 and set up shop in california... ♪ ...producing slayer and other heavy metal bands and well-established artists. johnny cash credited him with reviving his career. >> the first time i got to see him was at a dinner theater in orange county. it just seemed like the world had passed him by. and he believed the world had passed him by.

>> rubin looked around for lyrics that would suit the man in black. he picked a nine inch nails song called "hurt." cash made it his own. ♪ i hurt myself today to see if i still feel ♪ >> wow, that's incredible. >> it sounded honest. >> it's brutally honest. >> it's brutally honest, it's brutally honest. >> "hurt" became one of johnny cash's most popular songs, and over the course of a decade they made seven albums together. >> he shows up in all these different genres, and helps the real sound of those genres emerge. >> yeah, yeah, yeah, rick rubin has always been a little bruce lee zen-ish, i can't teach you, but i can help you explore yourself, that type of thing. >> chuck d., like the rest of us, is still trying to figure out exactly how rick rubin does what he does. >> yo anderson, rick was on the couch, and i was wondering,

we're in the booth, i'm wondering, "is he asleep or awake or what?" [ laughter ] and then makes a couple suggestions. boom, boom, boom, boom. and sure enough, it unfolds itself. i'm like, "ah." "dude's -- he just -- did some rick rubin -- to us." [ laughter ] >> we watched him do that with pop singer kesha. >> i think we should double that one. >> whatever you like, let's hear it. >> one, two... >> she was recording with a gospel choir. ♪ ♪ only love can save us now ♪ >> rick, what do you think? >> if we want to put it into the song, we can chop it up. >> this was her first time being guided by the guru. >> working with him has been genuinely life changing. he gave me, like, homework assignments. >> what homework assignments? >> i was writing a song, and i

couldn't articulate what i erng y need to say until u can'write anymore." and then the song kinda started forming itself. >> so he's not saying let's make a gold record that's going to do this in sales and -- >> god, no. he was like, "i just wanna make good music." and i was like, that's so crazy. >> the audience comes last. >> how can that be? >> well, the audience doesn't know what they want. the audience only knows what's come before. >> isn't the whole music business built around trying to figure out what somebody likes? >> maybe for someone else it is. but it's not for me. >> making music is of course a business, but whether he's working with malian singer oumou sangare, kesha, or johnny cash, rick rubin insists for him it's always been a deepl emotional pursuit.

>> we're trying to tap into a feeling. we're trying to tap into something that makes you want to lean forward and pay more attention. and i'm giving cues to look for in yourself because it all has to do with the artist. >> but, i mean, that does sound very spiritual. >> it is. no, it is. the whole thing is spiritual. [ laughter ] it's magic. >> and you don't want somebody who, who's listening to music and think, "oh, that's a rick rubin record"? >> no, no. i want them to say, "this is the best thing i've ever heard," and not know why. cbs sports hq is presented by progressive insurance. i'm james brown with the afc playoff bracket. the jags found the juice and jacked the win from l.a. kansas city is still waiting for their opponent, which could be the jags or the ravens. baltimore and cincinnati will square off tonight.

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"the last minute" of "60 minutes" is sponsored by united health care. get medicare with more. tonight, an update on a story called "counting the vote," which we broadcast after the 2020 election. bill whitaker looked at how trsupporteia eleofha

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