When Mark Ronson began writing his debut memoir a few years back, he grossly underestimated the commitment. “It ate my life,” he tells Variety of “Night People: How to Be a DJ in ’90s New York City,” an electric reminiscence of his days as a DJ on NYC’s club playground. “I’ve turned down production gigs left and right and whatever else it is, but I am proud of it in the way that it’s as good as I could have made it with my whatever, my writing talents.”
Ronson may be playing coy — at 50, he’s remarkably humble for someone who’s halfway to an EGOT and performed at the Super Bowl — but “Night People” explains why. Before producing canonical records with Bruno Mars and Amy Winehouse, he had humble beginnings as a teen discovering the art of deejaying, lugging records in cabs across town and building his name one club show at a time. “Night People” is written with a sense of clarity and, above all, appreciation for the pedigree of his musical career, a blueprint for the records he would inevitably produce and the dynamic impact he would leave on pop culture.
Currently, Ronson is in the promotional blitz for “Night People,” out Sept. 16 via Grand Central. He initially intended to release a single to coincide with the book drop, and was crafting an album fueled by samples and flips of records from that ’90s era. But ultimately, he doubled down on “Night People,” a read that makes you nostalgic for a time you may have never experienced.
Below, Ronson breaks down a handful of the 245 songs named in the book that were key to his makings.
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Redman, ‘Time 4 Sumaksion’
Image Credit: YouTube Redman’s record was an absolutely monstrous record at the time in New York. Even the way that it sounded was just so heavy. It was just a monster. And so when I went to the record store and got my turntables, I had money to buy four 12-inches. And that was one of the ones that I got.
After a month of trying to teach myself at home, I found one kid who used to go to my school, an older kid who came over and taught me how to DJ. He was like, no, you have to have two copies of the same record. That’s how you practice to scratch and go back and forth. And it’s amazing that I was so green that I didn’t even really think of that myself. And so I went back and bought a second copy of “Time 4 Sumaksion.” That was the first record that I learned how to mark up two copies and do doubles and that kind of stuff.
Funnily enough, as much as I love that record, there’s other records by Redman like “Can’t Wait” and “Da Rockwilder” that I really love more and play recurrently. But “Time 4 Sumaksion” is just something that I always just equate with my first trip to the record store.
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De La Soul, ‘Dinninit’
Image Credit: YouTube I’d been making little demos in my home studio that had a Mackie 8-channel mixer, which isn’t really even a home mixer. It’s like something that you would have at a fuckin’ blues bar to mix the band and a little digital eight-track on my MPC. And this guy, Ian from Tommy Boy, came to the clubs. I got all my first production gigs because I was in the clubs where people wanted to hang out and were like, oh, let’s ask the kid who plays the cool parties if he does beats. And he offered me, “You want to remix the next De La single?” And I was just like, oh my God, I can’t believe it.
I had this loop by this group, Lowrell, that I thought would sound cool, and it worked. And then he asked me who I wanted to mix it. I didn’t know anything about mix engineers, barely knew what they did. I just picked up a Wu-Tang record and on the back it said “Mixed by Carlos Best” and I was like, I’ll get the guy who did Wu-Tang, not thinking that as much as I love Wu-Tang, the Wu-Tang sound is absolutely nothing like my own production.
So it came back sounding all raw and fucking Wu-Tang and it just wasn’t quite right for the song. I know the remix definitely never came out and I don’t even know if De La Soul even knew that I did it, but it was a good lesson as well because I had it sounding better in my house.
I wish I [still had the remix]. It’s probably on a DAT tape lying in the bottom of the East River. I’m mad that I didn’t hang on to some of those old demos and things. Moving all these apartments so many times, you just become like lost socks in the laundry, you know?
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Bobby Caldwell, ‘What You Won’t Do For Love’
Image Credit: YouTube It was one of those songs that I never heard growing up. I’m sure it was something that was on R&B radio if you grew up in America or something. But some of those records I remember hearing at 18 or 19 and even though it’s a slow jam and it’s such a beautiful song that you could argue is a little soft, I was just so taken with it. And it’s so weird that you’re asking me because right now my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter is also obsessed with it. And you know, she knows Joni Mitchell and Chappell Roan, but to hear a two-and-a-half-year-old little girl say, “Play Bobby Caldwell”… My friends have been over when she said it and they’re like, did your fucking daughter just say Bobby Caldwell? Like she’s obviously touched by this song too.
It was an example of one of those records that you play at the beginning of the night when doors are opening, because you just need to like cleanse your soul and get ready for the night ahead, or it’s the song that you play at the end of the night when people are having the last slow dance.
I haven’t played it as much anymore because I’m a spoiled fucking DJ and I rarely play the end of the night anymore. Part of the fun thing of deejaying since I finished the book is I have been going out and playing three-, four-hour sets and playing from doors till doors. But I haven’t and I need to start reworking that song.
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‘All About the Benjamins’ / ‘Back in Black’
Image Credit: YouTube [I debuted this mix at] Cheetah on a Monday night, after maybe the Tunnel Mecca with Funkmaster Flex on Sunday. Cheetah Monday was probably the biggest, coolest hip-hop party in New York at the time. It was like Janet Jackson, Missy [Elliott], Mike Tyson, you name it. Everybody came there and it was this amazing crowd.
It was really my friend Jules’ gig, but when he would go away, he would let me play. And I heard AC/DC’s “Back in Black” one night at this other place called Spy Bar where they only played rock and roll and that was the super ultra VIP. It was like fucking Leo and Trump and Mariah partying in there. And I remember just thinking, God, this record is just so heavy and insane and watching all these people lose their minds, probably drunk and coked to the gills, but just like going crazy listening to this song. I was like, I wonder if I could play this at Cheetah. And it almost became like an OCD type obsession. It was really crazy because I was still on my way up. Doing something that I could have fallen on my face that much at that point in my career would have really hurt my standing in New York.
But I worked out this mix of playing the “Benjamins” into the Biggie verse, [and then] switching to this rap metal version of the “Benjamins” that I didn’t really love, but it was Biggie’s verse with guitars. I knew people would keep dancing, and then right on the downbeat, [segueing into “Back in Black”] worked. And it was this wonderful moment because like the crowd totally went for it. Obviously, it was gratifying because it was a big swing. And then after that, I started to get much more experimental with my DJ sets and it paid off because it carved me this lane that made me a bit different from what everyone else was doing.
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The Notorious B.I.G., ‘Hypnotize’
Image Credit: YouTube There’s quite a lot [of Biggie songs to pick] because “Hypnotize,” which came out only a few weeks before he passed, is bittersweet because obviously it was probably two weeks of playing it where it was tragedy-free, you know? That one is just such a stonker. There was the 112 remix, “Only You,” which was just such a fucking club staple at that time. Now, for me, I love playing “Party and Bullshit” and “Unbelievable.”
It’s crazy to think that I was in a room playing music where Biggie was standing and as I said in the book, I don’t even know if he knew my name. I don’t care. He just came and he partied while I was deejaying and that was enough.
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Jay-Z, ‘Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)’
Image Credit: YouTube Jay-Z had New York on fire all the time. Something about “Hard Knock Life” when it dropped was just so crazy because it was slow and then it was just so off the wall with the “Annie” sample that the brilliant Mark the 45 King flipped.
I remember when that song played and everybody would sing along and it’s so high-pitched, everybody’s voice is like squeaky singing off-key in the club. But that record really came in ’98 at the time that the club I played on Friday, Life, was at its ultimate peak. Jay-Z and Damon Dash were in there most Friday nights and to see like Jay posted up at his table basically overseeing the room, and then all these people clamored in trying to be anywhere near him and screaming this song at the top of their lungs was like, you could have filmed that music video any one of those nights.
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Nikka Costa, ‘Like a Feather’
Image Credit: YouTube Nikka, again, an example of getting a production gig because of my DJ sets. Dominique Trenier, who had the label that signed with Nikka and D’Angelo, came up and was like, “I got this white chick and I don’t know what the album’s supposed to sound like, but I want it to sound like your DJ sets: AC/DC, EPMD, Chaka Khan, Biggie.” And I was like, great, bring her by the crib.
When we started that record, I was kind of a novice on the production and Nikka was very patient and we found the sound together, but she probably had to deal with some rough-sounding demos. And when we finally made that record, it was really a bit of an accident. Nikka had come back from a flea market or something and she was like, I got you a record today and chucked it at me. So I did what I always do, listen quickly through each thing till I found a few notes that I chopped it up and played it for her.
It was a mixture of all our influences, my wanting to be DJ Premier and the way the beat was chopped, and Nikka’s super soulful vocals and Justin [Stanley]’s great bass line and even the guitars have this double-track fuzz. It’s a little Beatles but it’s a little Foreigner too. Like I had a little bit of my stepdad’s ’70s AM rock influences.
Jay-Z and Busta Rhymes and these people I love were coming up to me. They only knew me as the DJ. And they were like, you did that like “dun dun dun dun” thing. And I was a cool thing to suddenly be known for.