Mark Ronson On DJing In The '90s
00:00Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.RWJF is a national philanthropy, working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right.Learn more at RWJF.org.This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley.Music producer and DJ Mark Ronson's new memoir, Night People, takes us back to a New York that no longer exists.Before Mayor Rudy Giuliani's crackdown on nightlife, before camera-fellie.phones and bottle service transform the culture forever? It's the story of how a young outsiderwith a British accent found his place in the 1990s club scene, learning how to read crowds,
00:42dig through crates, and create the perfect mix of venues where the city's tribes collided,rappers and models and skaters and socialites, everyone glamorous and as Ronson describes thema little lawless. Night people, as he defines them, are different than people.who simply enjoy a night out.They become their best selves once the sun goes down,and daytime is just the warm-up.These formative years, spinning recordswould shape everything that came after.
01:12Ronson is a nine-time Grammy Award winner,producing career-defining albums for Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga.He's also behind hits like Uptown Funk with Bruno Mars,shallow, from a Star is Born, and the Barbie soundtrack.But Night People takes us to Ronson's beginning,DJing in 90s New York and rubbing shoulders with artists that would go on to become hip-hop andR&V legends like Biggie Smalls, Timbalin and Missy Elliott, Jay-Z, Puff Daddy, and Alia.Mark Ronson, welcome back to Fresh Air.
01:45Thank you so much. Thank you, Tanya. Thanks for having me.Yeah, you know, Mark, this was a really fun read, and it had me thinking that most of us experience the DJ from the dance floor.So this book really gives us a glimpse of what it's actually like for.for the DJ. And I actually think I want to start our conversation by you reading from the book. It'sthe opening scene right at the top and it gives us a taste. Can you read it for us? Absolutely.2 a.m. You're at a house party, packed with people rolling up from the club, all trying to squeeze a fewmore hours out of Saturday night. It's not wild, but it could get there. In the kitchen, bodies huddlearound a counter mixing, bottom shelf vodka with whatever's in reach, Capri Sun, kombucha, maybe both.
02:29Out on the terrace, the diehards are smoking cigarettes like it's still in 1999,ashing into a cereal bowl that's been sacrificed for the occasion.In the living room, speakers pump out a mishmash of bedroom popin the occasional boy band classic.Somebody's go-to playlist.It's ironic, tolerable, and ultimately a bit lifeless.You can feel it, though.The party is on the verge.
02:56It just needs someone brave enough to tip it over.You pull out your phone and cue up your shorefire banger sliding over to the speaker,you hijack the ox cord like it's nothing and a sharp electronic buzz rips through the room.Eyes snap towards you. The judgment is heavy.But then your fingertip makes contact and the opening kick drums of fat man scoops,be faithful, tear through the room like blows from Thor's hammer.The shift is seismic.Cup slammed to countertops. The sofa gets shoves back.
03:29Please flood the floor with raised hands.A collective finally overtakes the place.You stand by the speaker, cradling your phone like a trophy.The room is alive, buzzing, and somehow united.Your finger hovers over the screen to queue up the next heater.The crowd now trusts you.You're about to show them why.That's my guest today, award-winning producer and DJ Mark Ronson,
03:54reading from his new memoir Night People.Mark, I love this moment because it really is kind of a pure show of your power as a DJ.You're able to just make the room explode by the decisions that you make.And you describe in this book how nothing compares to the first time you feel it.Take me back to the actual first time you actually experienced that rush.Yeah.So the first time I had that feeling I was at my mother's wedding to my stepfather.and I think I was 10 years old.
04:29And they had like a really small little wedding in the garden of this summer rental.And even though my stepdad was this really successful, huge rock star,he was in the band, Foreigner, and wrote all these songs,I want to know what love is, waiting for a girl IQ.It seemed like the music at the wedding was almost an afterthought.Like I think they were playing like a tape deck in the house that was wired to some speakers in the garden.And then one point, as the sun was going down, the music just kind of stopped.entirely like you heard the cassette like kind of snap and Mick just looked at me and he was like
05:01mom go put something on and you know obviously this felt like the all the responsibility of theworld in my hands like this little kid obsessed with music like my stepdad saying like you cancontrol the music you know like at this wedding so I ran in the house and there were all thesecassettes on the floor and I remember like searching through them and there was nothing that seemedright and then I saw time pieces the best of Eric ClaptonAnd I was like, ah, and even in my 10-year-old brain,I saw the song Wonderful Tonight on there.And I was like, that is an appropriate song for now.
05:36That is like, my mom looks wonderful in her dress,and it seems romantic, and I'm going to put that on.I quickly queued it up, you know, had some crazy 80s cassette deck with an auto cueand found the song hit play.And I remember standing inside the house looking through the windowas my stepdad pulls my mom in for like a slow dance.the moon and you know i even say in the book my memory here is blurring it might be a littlehollywooded out but it was like he brought her and she's luminescent in this dress and i just
06:07stood there watching this scene slightly drunk off this feeling of like oh my god you know thisis my music playing out there but also it was this thing it was like the first time in my lifei genuinely have a memory of having done something right so you know obviously at that moment thatwasn't like my Spider-Man Genesis story. I wasn't something like, I know I'm going to be aDJ. I didn't even put this together probably until I was writing the book, but it really is one ofmy most sort of visceral early childhood memories. Well, you make this distinction between people whoenjoy a night out and night people, people who kind of just become their best selves once thesun goes down. And when did you realize that you were also a night person? Well, I think it's one of
06:59those things, you know, when I was 18 starting out as a DJ in clubs in New York, music was just mypassion. So I'm chasing this thing at night because if you're a DJ, obviously you work atnight. But then as I was writing the book and I started to piece together like, wait, this reallytight-knit crew of maybe 200 people that we saw it all the time that were all a little brokenin their own way or maybe it's too much of a generalization to say everybody was like you knowfalling apart or a vampire but there was this thing that just the people that I saw out night afternight were people that the daytime was just like a little too like in the broad in the whatever thebright light of day it was like too much for people maybe they were running from something
07:45running towards something, looking for community.So I realized, you know, I came up with the term night peoplebecause I thought that applied to our little cracked community of people.You also were raised by night people.You mentioned your mom, you mentioned your stepdad, Mick Jones.He would actually wake you up in the middle of the night on school nights.And I think you were in middle school to get your opinion on foreigner mixes.What do you remember most about those nights?
08:17I just remember thinking it was so cool that he, obviously,that he valued my opinion.You know, I was so obsessed with music and he had a home studio.And the idea of being at his home studio,watching him craft these demos and trying to learn how to work these tape machines and stuffwas so cool.Like his home studio was my favorite room in the house.So the fact that he would wake me up at 2 in the morning and be like,
08:43play me these mixes from the latest foreign songs and ask my opinion, I just, I mean, I'veso valued my time spent alone with him because he was out of the house and on tour a lot,and I was so close to him, but also feeling like my opinion meant anything was also reallykind of, yeah, it just meant the world to me.Mark, I mean, it's your life, so it's normal for you.But I think for any foreigner fan or even those who just are aware of foreigner, to hear thatyou were in the room as he was going through these mixes, some of them went on to be verypopular songs, iconic songs. Are there things that you remember where you were listening to
09:23those beginning, like the beginning stages of music that would become the tapestry of our lives?I don't remember specific songs, but I think it was the first time that he brought a mixhome and played it for me, and then he played me a mix of the same song, you know, a week later.And I said, I kind of liked the other one, or I was, you know, nine years old, squeaky English accent.I kind of like the other one because it had a, the bass was a bit louder.And he was just like, what?Like how?And then he checked and with the engineer, like, was the bass louder?
09:56And I think after that he realized I had these sort of like bizarre, like recall for these things.I think he started to value my opinion.But no, it is crazy to think that I was listening to as he was like,I want to know what love is in these songs that would become.classics. Like, I can't tell you how much of my, you know, opinion actually went into the finalproduct, but it was, it was so, it was so important to me.I really can't get over that he wrote, I want to know what love is, about your mother.I know. And, no, that's insane. And then also, the song that he wrote,
10:33waiting for a girl like you, before he tried to convince my mom that he wrote it for herto and she was like not having it.She's like, but you wrote that four years before you met me, but he was like, but I waswaiting for a girl like you.I think he was just trying to be romantic or something, but yeah, she wasn't having it.You had this incredible music education at home with Mick, and just your mother also hadlots of musician and creative friends who would come in and out of your home.She had lots of parties at night, so you got to see night people, even in the adults who were
11:08around you as a young child. But at 17, you write about how you were still kind of searching foryour own musical identity. You had started a couple of bands with friends. And then you heard this songby Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth. They reminisce over you, Troy. That's the name of the song. And somethingin you clicked. And I want to talk to you about that. But first, I want us to listen to a bit of it.I reminisce for a spell or shall I say think back22 years ago to keep it on trackThe birth of a child from the 8th of OctoberA toast but my granddaddy came sober
12:02Count all the fingers in the toes now I suppose your own little black boy growsI think that came out like in 1992.Yeah.Tell me about the night you first heard that and why it rocked your world.Like you said, you know, I'd spent my whole teens wanting to play music.I had this band that I'd put like my entire sort of like I had no social life at school.Like everything was about this band and there were four other brilliant musicians in it.And I was sort of probably the weak link technically as a guitar player.
12:34But my, you know, I hustled, got us.made the flyers, got us the gigs, arranged the songs, produced our demos, and stole stage clothesfrom my mom's closet. But I think there was just this moment where I started to become a littlefrustrated with the lack of my technical abilities and everyone's kind of shooting past me.And I started to have this more real realization, like, if this is what being a musician is,if I want to be a music, I might have to find my own lane. And we had had this really,big gig, our most important gig everat this thing called the New Music Seminar
13:10which was sort of like a south bysouthwest that used to happen in New Yorkin the 90s where the biggest bandsand new bandswould play and, you know, A&Rscouts would come and that's how they findthe huge superstars of tomorrow, whatever.And we got this big gig
13:26which I sort of blagged our wayinto opening up for, I think it wasarrested development. And wehad just, we had bombed.We had bombed at the gig. It wasThe last gig before a couple of the bandwere gone up to college, it was like just one of thoseturning point nights were like, wow, like we just,
13:43this might be over.And riding back up town in my drummers,I remember he had a Mazda 626, it was his stepdad's,and we'd shoved the drum kit and my amps in the back,and we're heading up the West Side Highway kind of likein dead silence, because we're just both kind of like,just so bummed from the gig.And he put this song on, they reminisce over you.
14:04And there was just something, I mean, you just heard it,how mournful.It's just so beautiful, but the drums are so driving and groovy and incredible.And there's something about loss and mourning that's in the lyrics.And I just heard it and it just got under my skin in such a way.And I just was like, this is what I want to do.Whatever I have to do to only be around this music from now on, that's what I want.And that was kind of the turning point when I decided to become a DJ.
14:33You described it as wanting to live inside of the song, which I thought was just really powerful.Yeah, there was, yeah, and I think I said, like, I got back to my drummer's house and I stayed over at his house because it's just one of those nights, like, you'd do anything not to go home, like, even if you're sleeping on someone's couch, just to be in the next room from someone.And I just remember listening to his, he had a cassette single, and I listened to it over and over again, like, chasing the ache.Like, you know, when there's something that's just sad, but you just, like, want to absolutely fully dive into it.And that was a real turning point for me.There's that saxophone that loops in that song, which is a sample.It's actually from the 1967 song Today by Tom Scott.And I actually want to play a little bit of that, too.
15:23And we're actually picking up the song where that saxophone comes in for the song, which is kind of later in this song.Let's listen.That was today by Tom Scott, 1967, and Mark, this was a real turning point for you, as you said, in this original sample, you found it as well, and that ignited an obsession for you.You write about spending hours in record stores hunting down for you.for these kind of obscure records.But what strikes me about this particular sampleis how, I don't want to say buried,but it comes at the latter half of this song.
16:44So when you're hunting for samples,I mean, you're not just hunting for rare records.You're hunting for hidden moments within the records.I'm just wondering when you started to go search for your own samples,how deep would you dig into a single song?well I think you're exactly rightlike this is an example that the mostbeautiful moment of a song could be somewhere
17:07you know in the middle and there's a tendencywhen you're sampling oryou know quote unquote digging for breakslike you're just kind of listening to the beginningthree seconds of every song butyou know you talk to any legendaryproducer from that time DJ premiereor Q-tip they were always like listening to the
17:22whole record Dillayou know one of the most celebrated producers alwayswould and but I loveI love that you played that songA, thank you, and B, it's so emblematic of that time.Like, that was, I know, because I'm so obsessed with the Pete Rock song,I know all the folklore, and there was this famous record conventionthat would happen a few times a year at the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown,
17:47and everybody would go to find their breaks in the 90s,and large professor, a very popular producer of the time,had grabbed the record and decided maybe listen to it quickly,it wasn't for him, and handed it to Pete Rock,he was leaving him, like, hey, there's nothing for me on here, like, you might dig this.And then the fact that it's an obscure, Tom Scott was this incredible session saxophone playerwho played with Joni Mitchell and on countless, you know, film soundtracks and so celebrated now.But back then, he was just making an obscure jazz instrumentalist record where he was covering also, like,
18:22not obscure, but a lesser-known song by the Jefferson Airplane.And, like, how do all these things come together to then provide the music for one of them?most sort of iconic hip hop songs of its eras just was just such a wonderful like sort ofyou know patchwork like of all these coincidences so it was so emblematic of that time how deep wasyour obsession to find these obscure records and like what what lengths would you go to oh my god likewell this record was an obscure record like like most things and probably a five dollar record untilthat sample happened and then suddenly it was a hundred dollarrecord because now it's part of an iconic it's part of history and everyone wants to also check
19:05what other gold might be on that album so that record was out of the question for me to have at thatpoint because you know it was a hundred dollar record but i would you know there was no streaming therewas nothing there so i there was one guy at my college this uh dj record collector named ben belizewho i knew who had that record and i would just go to his room like sometimes he would come back to hisdorm room he's a senior and I was a freshman and I'd be like sitting outside his dorm room waiting for him to like open the doors I could come and listen to some of these records again because that's that's and I had to spend like the first month at college like proving my worth and like trustworthiness to him so he would even let me listen to record so like it was such an interesting time that there's something that you love like the access to it was so slim and you had to kind of like befriend people who had the records and then prove yourself as you know whatever like thea genuine musicappreciator. Butof course I love it because it made everything
20:05so sacred, but it's ridiculous nowto think you could just go to who sampledand you would find out what the thing was, and you wouldimmediately go to Spotify or YouTube.Our guest today is Mark Ronson,Grammy-winning producer,an author of the new memoir, Night People,How to be a DJ in 90s, New York City.
20:22I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.Support for NPR,and the following message comes fromthe Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, RWJF is a national philanthropy, working toward a future wherehealth is no longer a privilege but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org.You paint this vivid picture, but I want to go a little bit deeper into the sheer physicalityof your job, because I would just guess that New York City is not for the feign of heart forDJs, because today you just have kind of like a computer or a thumb
20:59drive with your music, but back then you had to lug these big crates of records through the cityto play gigs. How many crates on average would you take to a gig? And like where, would youjump in a cab? Would you be on a subway? Would you be climbing upstairs? Oh my God. I mean,all of it. I mean, so I, I, the standard that I would take on any given night was probably threecrates, you know, with a hundred records each and maybe like a giant bursting bag because you'retaking old school disco and classics, old school hip hop, new school hip hop, R&B, reggae, a littlebit of house music. So if you're doing a four or five hour set, which is what we're doing mostnights, that's what you're bringing. So if I was playing a cool club, I had a bunch of friends
21:43with me. Everybody wants to get it and get some drink tickets. If I was playing like a not so coolclub, like it's playing one of my, you know, uptown like pay the bills gigs at a bar on theUpbri-side, nobody was coming with me.And those were the nights when, you know, I mean, I kind of write about it.Like, sometimes leaving my apartment would be like that riddle of the teacher in school, the fox,the farmer in the bag of grain and the fox and the chicken and the farmer has to take them across the thing.So I had three crates and put one in my front door to keep the door open, call the elevator, put one in the elevator,keep the elevator door open, go back for the third one that was in the apartment, put that in the elevator,
22:24the one that was in my apartment door, bring that over on the way and kick the one that's holdingthe elevator door open, all the way down stairs, I'm already breaking a sweat, and then repeatthe whole thing in reverse. And that was like in the apartment, that was only one buildingwhere I ever had an elevator. The rest of it were like four or five-story walk-up. So you werereally like, yeah, you had broken a sweat before you were even in the cab on the way to the club,but it's I was 22 you know my back could take it it's a little bit different now what's your backlike today yeah it's not very grateful to that 22 year old DJ it's I have like you know listenit's not like maybe being a chef or another intense line of thing where you're just like
23:07covered in cuts bruises and calluses but I still have I only found out two years ago that I havethis crazy arthritis in my right foot from 25 years the doctorwhen I went in, he was like, oh, I watched aYouTube video of you, I noticed youkind of like really aggressivelytap your foot while you're DJingand I had never thought about this because you're justtapping to the beat. He's like, yeah, that
23:31happens to musicians in thefill, like even just tapping yourfoot for 30 years at the thing. SoI've named itDJ foot because I just want it tobe like my own, but no, it's, and thenI mean this, I'm not proud ofany of it, but like terrible tinnitus.
23:47My back is completelymessed up from, you know, 25 years of headphones on.You've got your neck crooked to one side.Which looked kind of cool, you know?Like, that always is kind of the stance.It's the stance.It looks cool, but it's not great for you.Is there something you miss about it, though?
24:07I mean, it's much easier now you just got your computer in front of you, I would guess.Yeah, you know, in the book, I wanted to keep it as diaristically and just really only in the 90s.And it's really only in the epilogue where I'm walking around downtown with my daughter strapped to me in the baby, beyond, seeing the clubs and talking about what it was like then versus now with the laptop versus the hundreds of records.And a good friend of mine read the book, and he said, I really like the book.He goes, it just sounds like you really miss playing vinyl.So you should just only play vinyl until the end of the year.And I don't know why.I was just like, okay.
24:44So I just started to play records againand been playing out in clubs in Brooklyn and downtownand it really has been this joyousrestart of my love for DJingso I'm very grateful to it in some waysbut in other ways like yeah carrying those records aroundjust insane going down into a basementand coming back up and like I used to
25:07I hope this is okaylike I used to be leaving the cluband like dialing the dealer on the way out of the cluband now I'm making an appointment with my acupuncturist online as I'm leaving the clubbecause my back is just so jacked.But it's been incredible playing vinyl again, actually.I didn't realize how much I had missed that process.I want to talk a little bit about that power and control that you have to move people.
25:32There's this night you described where you made people go literally nuts.It was at a club called Sweet Thang.Can I have you read?Absolutely.One night, around 1 a.m., I dropped a new cut called Dejaveau Uptown Baby.Only a few weeks old, its hometown pride refrain had already taken over every club and radio station in NYC.When the chorus hit, as the crowd chanted, uptown, baby, uptown baby, we gets down, baby.Loud enough to be heard five blocks away, I duck the volume and drop the instrumental to bust the rimes,
26:09put your hands where my eyes could see on beat under their voices, remixing the room itself.There was a half-second delay as their brains processed what just happened, and then they ignitedlike an energy rocket from floor to ceiling. For eight bars, it felt like we'd all leapt into anotherdimension. Okay, so in that moment when there's that half-second delay for everybody's brainsto process what just happened, that must have felt like an eternity. What does that feel like?up there where you're taking a chance in trying something new, you're not sure if the crowdis actually going to respond to it.It's just, I, it's such a visceral memory of all the times because there were, you know,
26:52thousands of the times that I would do that.You would drop the volume, so the whole crowd is chanting, uptown baby, uptown baby.And as they're chanting, that's all they're thinking about, you drop.Could you go, chung, chagoo-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-c, the bust-rhymint, so they're stillchanting, there's a split second where they have to realize, oh my God, he's dropping this othersong that we love even more as we're singing under it. So you are literally remixing the roomand there. Whenever you do one of those mixes, we used to call them word play mixes, where yougo from like the line in one song, there's a line in Snoops, Gin and Juice, where we got,
27:30and they ain't leave until six in the morning. And then on six in the morning, you go right intoNas Uchiwali because he's referenced that song.So they ain't leaving until six in the morning is now Nas.So you've just done this slick on-beat transition from Snoop to Nas.And of course, like, you know, it takes a half second for the brain to realize, but it's still on-beat.And you just get this, like, crazy, like, blowback, this charge from the crowd all going like, oh, at the same time, you know.They call it the scream, the chant, whatever it is.And it's like clay or Plato.
28:08Like the whole crowd is this thing that you're able to mold together.It's incredible.It's kind of why I can't stop DJing.It's like still a feeling that I only get from this one thing,no matter sort of what else I do in my work as a producer.Let's take a short break.If you're just joining us, we're talking with Mark Ronsonabout his new memoir, Night People.
28:30We'll continue our conversation after a short break.This is fresh air.Okay, Mark, so the crowds that you're playing for in the early and mid-90s, it was such a blend, as you say, hip-hop heads and fashion kids and artists.But you also write about being Jewish in hip-hop, often one of the few white faces and having advantages that most DJs didn't with your family money and your connections.And I'm wondering how did you balance being an outsider who, on one hand, you needed to prove yourself with being an insider who already had, like, certain doors open?Yes.Yes, of course, when I started off DJing, like coming from this, like, nice family uptown with a stepdad who was a rock star and my mom who was just like larger than life, you know, she was out in the parties, out in the scene in New York, sort of.amazing rock and roll artist mom.
29:34I was horribly embarrassed of all of it,but it's probably like more in a teenage waywhen you're just like, oh, mom,like, do you have to come to the club when I'm DJing?Meanwhile, everybody thought it was the coolest thingthat my mom came to these like hole-in-the-wall basements and clubs.But yes, I think in as kind of immature way,I thought that that would make me, like, quote-unquote,
29:56other in this scene where really like the scene was just aboutshowing and proving.I remember FunkmasterFlex in an early articlein the New York Timesand it was likeI just remember beinglike this is the nicest thing
30:12anyone's ever said out of mehe knows it doesn't matterwho his family is where he's fromhe knows how to rock a roomlike blah blah blahand that was like you knowobviously Flex at the timeis the absolute biggest figure
30:22in New York hip-hopbut yes I did have advantagesthat other peoplereally didn't haveof course my mom bought methe turntables for graduation. I had a stepdad who was a musician who nurtured like,you know, my musical, what I wanted to do as a kid. So I had to really deal with thatand address that really out in the open in the book because, of course, I had advantages and
30:47stuff like that. But I also, you know, worked my ass off and that's kind of like the two sidesof the book. It also sounded like something you did and stick with me here. Like it sounds likemaybe that tension also pushed you to find your own lane to do something different.I actually think I want to reference the ACDC back in black moment.You talk about this moment where you took some risks, where you brought in other types of music,not just old samples, but also like rock music, that actually helped you develop your signature offering.And to do this, I want to actually play.a little bit of Back in Black, so we remember what that sounded like.
31:33Let's listen.That was ACDC's how you took this song into what you call it on the East Coast.That was ACDC's classic Back in Black.And Mark, you tell this story of how you took this gamble to smuggle this songinto what you call the hottest hip-hop party on the East Coast.What did you do with it and how did you know it would work?Well, I absolutely didn't know it would work.So obviously just listening to that song now, it's like anybody with a.
32:29pulse knows it's hot, it's prettyundeniable that record andit was, it had been sampled byRick Rubin for the B.C. boys.K.R.S. had sampled it forBoogie Down production. It wasn't completely foreign tohip-hop, but nobody played thatrecord in the clubs at that time.
32:45And I was at this club called Spy Barone night, which was thisvery, like, one of the first supertrendy, exclusive ultraVIP lounges. Like, I rememberbeing at the door sometimes and watching, like,Trump get turned away. And it wasjust like it was this it was this place Leonardo DiCaprio whatever the 90s like it was like the
33:06place everybody wanted to be and the DJs there played a lot of rock and roll and half of the timeI tried to get and I couldn't get in but one night I'm in there and they play the song and everybodyjust starts going crazy and like dancing on the couches like at the fall of Rome and I just rememberbeing hit by how powerful that record was and this was a crowd that was dancing was very unlike thecrowds that I DJed for. But I remember starting to think, God, I really want to play this at Cheetah, which was the big party on the Monday night, which is where Mike Tyson and Janet Jackson and Missy Elliott, it really was the place. So I worked out this mix all week where I could play The Benjamin's by Little Kim and Puff Daddy, which was the biggest song of the time, and go into this rock and roll remix as a transition of that song, and then write on the one.And as soon as Biggie's verse ended, play back in black.And, you know, obviously, like, it was the kind of club that if I played and fallen on my face,like, it's the kind of place something could get a bottle could be thrown at the booth.
34:09Like, you don't really know.Like, it wasn't a place where you really wanted to mess around too much.So I played the thing, and I dropped the record, and it's a split second,where it's like, the crowd is just kind of like, huh?But it's on beat.Everybody's still dancing.and there's no chance to kind of be too judgmentalwhen your body's still moving, right?
34:30And it feels good.And by the second time the riff came around,the club just kind of erupted.Like, there was this incredible feeling,like the crowd, like just everyone knowingthey were doing somethingthey kind of weren't supposed to be doing.Like this song that we weren't supposed to be hearing it,
34:45I was supposed to be playing it.They weren't supposed to be dancing to it.And it was just this great moment.And from that moment on it did free me upand made me a little more brave.And it's funny because, you know, the mashup era came quite soon after.So it's almost a little ho-hum to think of, like, playing back and back in a club.Like, of course, why not?
35:07But at that moment, there was nothing like it.But it did help me find my own sound and identity.And that's kind of when I really started to, I guess, get, like, crazy gigs and offersbecause I was doing something that nobody else was doing.How many times can you pull out a trick like that all about the Benjamin,with ACDC in the same club and then people identify it or does it work no matter how many timesyou do it? Like how do you make that calculation? Yeah, you can't do it too much because then itsort of loses the, it loses the excitement, right? It loses the surprise factor. It's like if
35:43you're a stand-up comedian and you're going to do the same joke twice to the same crowd, it's going tobe sort of, it's going to lose its impact for sure. So you kind of do it in different clubs or youYou kept finding new ways to drop it or surprise it.You know, I'd be spending my whole days, like, practicing my mixes and the things that I wanted to do in the club that night.The job does seem very similar to a comedian because you're responding to the crowd.So you're coming with an established set, but are you also making decisions in the moment based on the reactions of the crowd and the dance floor?Yeah.I mean, sometimes you're making the decision before, like, just once you walk into a room and you kind of, you kind of.
36:25of scanning, you're like, oh, I know what this crowd is going to be like.Or, you know, DJs and stand-ups, we both completely, our talent and skills are uselesswithout a crowd.We can only do what we do in front of people.We work nights.You know, all my comedian friends are quite insular and, you know, obsessed with their craftand only hung out mainly with other comedians.It was like the DJ community was totally the same.
36:50You know, comics have timing.DJs have rhythm.We work clubs.We call it.killing when we do good. It's actually funny how many similarities there really were.Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, we're talking with Grammy-winning producer MarkRonson about his new memoir, Night People, which captures his early years as a DJ in 1990s, New YorkCity. We'll be right back after a short break. This is Fresh Air.
37:19In this era, people know you for the hits that you have produced for people, like,like Amy Winehouse and Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga. You write about in the book, though,your first real production success outside of DJing was Like a Feather with Nika Costa,and it's this fusion of hip-hop beats and rock guitars and, of course, her soulful voice. Let's play a little.Coming out of my wishing wellAll those echoes when they hear my friendsI'm coming around dependingBecause my resistance's been far too persist
38:25That was nice to find it far to fall in fall to fall to the palm of my hand.That was Nika Costa's Like a Feather, produced by my guest, Mark Ronson.What did you learn about that type of collaboration?because DJing is also kind of a solitary endeavor as well.It's like you and your mind and your taste.And in this instance, you're working along with musicianswho have very strong opinions as well.Yeah, we would have these crazy arguments, you know.
39:09And it was the first time that I really was like in a full collaborationwith Nika and her husband, Justin, who was the co-producer.And, you know, she came out playing in live bandsand like she didn't maybe love hip hop and the program drums as much as I did.And, you know, I was trying to like force that hand.And, of course, Lauren Hill, miseducation had just come out.There was just this incredible synthesis of live and programmed.And we all were enamored with that.
39:40But, yeah, it suddenly was.I realized I wasn't the most important person in the equation.And actually, and I still hold that to this day.Like, if I'm working with an artist, you know, of course,If I have an idea I feel passionate about, I'm going to fight for it.But they're the one that has to go around singing that for the next two yearsor maybe the rest of their life.So it's like, okay, at the end, I will, you know, give that artist the final say
40:04if I haven't, whatever, pleaded my point strong enough.But, yeah, the collaboration thing was that I learned from that.But to be honest, like growing up in a family of 10 siblingsand sort of, like, constantly, you know, practicing diplomacy or whatever the hell it was.I think that my childhood, like, made me a good listener and understander,and that's kind of, that's an important tool for a music producer.What are some of the biggest DJing sins, in your opinion?I'll just say, like, I hate when a DJ does that, plays that horn, like,
40:43bum-p-pun.Oh, really?The air horn.The claxon.Um, yes, there's something about that that's sort of like, it's a little bit like, uh, uh, an extra explosion in a, in a film, right? It's like kind of like, all right, if you're not making me feel it enough with the music, like I don't need the horns to be bullied into having a visceral emotion to this music. But I also, I also kind of like the air horn. I mean, it's just something about it like that feels very New York radio.the other ones are like and I sort of talk about them because you know the book I said how to be a DJ in 90s New York City is the title because it's a little bit tongue in cheek no one's ever going to be a DJ in 90s New York City so but there are a lot of things in this book that I feel like at any era might might sort of like help out so there's things like back in that era my era it was a cardinal sin to really play a record more than once in the nightLike if there was a huge hit to play it five times throughout the night was like this thing like, oh, you're not good enough to like to rock a night with only playing the big records once.There was a bit of that sense.
41:53There was this thing like never play all the big records when you're the opener.In fact, you don't play any big records when you're the opener.I remember DJ.Like radio hits.Like any of the big club records.Like I remember opening for Funkmaster Flex and being so nervous to like play anything.Like, I didn't play anything from literally the past seven years or something.And then the idea of, like, you know, playing huge records to an empty room, like, trying to ignite a room before it's ready.
42:24Before the room is ready.So timing just is such a thing.Like, you have to know it.You have to be so attuned, which means you kind of have to be attuned to human behavior.And it's a sense.Is it something that can be taught?It's, I mean, that's why they call it, you know, the expression reading a room.Like, it's like, I don't know if it literally goes back to DJing, but it's like reading the floor, reading the room, reading the dance floor.
42:49It's like there's so much of it that's just, yes, it's the interplay between you and the crowd.There's, you could be in the best nightclub in the world with the best sound system.It doesn't matter if you, if it doesn't, if the crowd isn't with you and you don't have a relationship with them, that's, that's what it's, that's what it's all comes down to.certainly for a great night.Mark Ronson, it's such a pleasure to talk to you,and thank you so much for this fun, Reid.Thank you so much.Mark Ronson's new memoir about DJing
43:21in the 90s New York club sceneis called Night People.Tomorrow on Fresh Air,President Trump recently stepped up pressureon the Department of Justiceto pursue his political enemies.One of them, former FBI director James Comey,was indicted last week.
43:37Legal Scholar and former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuaid joins us to talk about what this means for U.S. law and the precedent it sets. I hope you can join us.To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air.Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brick.Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldinado, Lauren Crenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yacundi, and Anna Bauman.Our digital media producer is Molly C.B. Nesper. Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson.Roberta Shorak directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.Support for NPR and the following message comes from theRobert Wood Johnson Foundation.
44:39RWJF is a national philanthropyworking toward a future where healthis no longer a privilege but a right.Learn more at RWJF.org.
There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click any sentence in the transcript to leave one.