Malcolm Gladwell, the New Yorker writer and author of not-very-hip-hop books, has been popping up in hip-hop conversations more and more over the last few months. Gucci Mane loves Gladwell, and the two have sparked up an unlikely friendship via Twitter that’s now flourished in the real world. And today, I get to write this sentence: Malcolm Gladwell and Rick Rubin have a new podcast called Broken Record, Eminem features on the first episode, and Gladwell reveals that JAY-Z convinced Beyoncé to appear on Em’s “Walk on Water.”
The whole 15-minute episode is pretty interesting. Gladwell guides the listener through things in an almost parodically well-honed podcast voice, cutting back to an interview between Rubin, who produced “Walk on Water,” and Eminem. That in itself is a wild conversation, with Em constantly flying off on tangents, discussing his history and talking about his influences. Listen to it in full below.
Videos by VICE
Follow Noisey on Twitter.
