Mark Ronson

Nine-time Grammy-winning producer and DJ Mark Ronson sits down with Questlove to discuss the many elements of his life and love of music, particularly as they intersect with the era explored in his New York Times best-selling book, Night People. Ronson reflects on a formative period in New York City nightlife, his awkward beginnings as a club DJ, and the experiences that sparked his passion for Hip-Hop and playing music for others. Drawing from the book—originally conceived as a companion piece to an album—he also opens up about balancing family life with a demanding career. Along the way, Ronson and Questlove compare notes on the evolving rules of DJ’ing, making this conversation a perfect groove for music lovers.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Request. Loft Show is a production of iHeart Radio. As
if nabbing Producer of the Year for Amy Winehouse's groundbreaking
Back to Black wasn't enough not to mention to Record

(00:20):
of the Year nods for rehab from said Back to
Black and his own uptown funk with Bruno Mars, not
to be outdone by the Oscar he won for Lady
Got Got a Shallow for a stars Born And you
can also add in the executive producer of the phenomenon

(00:41):
known as the Barbie Soundtrack. Our guests can now add
New York Times best selling author there you go. This
is his love letter to a music era that's also
near and deer close to my heart of the late
nineties early arts New York nightlife. It's called night People.

(01:02):
I highly recommend this essential reading. Our guest today, of course,
goes without an introduction for his accolades and his roster.
It will be all day saying it. Miles Cyrus, du
Alipa A Dell, Paul McCartney, Wile Ronfest, Luli Allen, Christina
Aguilera goes face killing most steph cute tip yea yea yeava, YadA, YadA, YadA. Ladies,
and gentlemen once again, Mark Ronson, what's up? Hell, how

(01:25):
are you? Thank you for doing this for me?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Thank you?

Speaker 1 (01:27):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
The great thing about the New York Times bestseller thing
is what you only need one week on there. You
can say for the rest of you.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
As long as you get that first week and they're
like they weren't put the sticker on there, New York Times.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Best to put the sticker on my grave anyway, No,
I mean, you've kind of blazed the path of like that,
I guess, pivoting the music writing that comes from a musician.
There's plenty of great music writers that we love, and
we know Nelson, George, Dan charnis all this. But but
I definitely look up to you very much. Thin You've

(02:00):
read such great books and they just cast a white
net without pandering. And yeah, so anyway, I know you're
congratchating me now I'm gone throwing it back at you.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
I mean, I love books like these, and no matter
how much I try to encourage our peer group to
take note of things, especially now that I'm in the
dock space, and it's really hard trying to extract information
from a seventy year old, you know, in a way
that's not revisionist history. Yeah, or just wrapped in a bowl.

(02:30):
Well yeah, one day we you know, when the studio
did this hit single and then went home and I'm like, yeah,
you know, so I love seeing how the sausage just
made and kind of is a very fascinating read. So
I thank you for giving me the pleasure to nerd
out on you.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
I was really inspired by Anthony Bourday in Kitchen Confidential,
was a book that I never caught when it came out.
I read it much later on, maybe around the time
that that doc came out about him, and I just
thought it was listen, He's an incredible, like like hundred
Thompson level writer. But what I really took more inspiration

(03:10):
from was that writing about a high octane sort of
occupation profession and all the crazy highs and lows of it.
But also like, I'm actually not really into cooking and
I'm not a great cook, and I don't know anything
about kitchens. But like his second chapter was all about knives,
and then I'm like, oh, now I give a shit
about knives. Like I just was thinking about this, like

(03:31):
he localizes yeah, and I was like, you can write
about cartridges slip mats and the inner workings of a
technique's twelve hundred, like in a book like this, because
if you're going to write a tribute to DJ and
as long as like, you'll get so bogged down. But
I really wanted to make it. Yeah, part of that
like when you're a kid and you see two turntables
together for the first time and you have that like

(03:54):
lifelong infatuation with it, and what some of those things are,
as well as just what New York.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Was like in the clubs. Do you remember the first
time that you saw a DJ perform? I do? Who
was it? I do?

Speaker 2 (04:06):
And it's amazing that I remember because I was on
acid or ecstasy or maybe both because there was this
all ages kids rave like in pre Giuliani New York
and like ninety two ninety three, God bless David Dinkins
that he was dealing with the housing crisis. He wasn't
worried about like fifteen year old kids maybe like at
a rave on ecstasy. I was at this club called

(04:29):
The Shelter, which before that was Area Shelter. Yeah, the
Shelter was but on Friday nights. For about a year
and a half, they had this all ages rave called NASA,
and they didn't serve alcohol, so there was a reason
that kids could get in and be up all ages,
but they that certainly turned a blind eye to you
know whatever else.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
I mean when you say all ages, you could be
how old.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
I think that there were definitely, like we were fifteen sixteen.
There were definitely kids that looked like thirteen. It had
like a definite like Lord of the Flies vibe to it.
Like but at least before they started bashing each other
in the head with the shells.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Would they raise an eyebrow if say a forty year old.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, That's what was so cool about it. It was
like there was It wasn't like there was this other
scene going on that was a little adjacent, which was
disco two thousand and Limelight, which became the party Monster.
You know that that was much more debauch, and that
was like older people going through the rooms trying to
apply young kids with row hipno or whatever. But this
really was just like schools out for summer, Like this

(05:30):
was something about it, and that's why it was just
so incredible. Was the first thing that like I lied,
beg you know, borrow like whatever to get into this
place because it was like Disneyland for kids. So what
Disneyland is for kids, Disneyland for serotonin.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
Trade kids, I don't think so good. Yeah so yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
So they had the big main room and they had
big techno DJs playing, and I would alway, I go
into those rooms of my friends and then after like
five minutes be like, I know I'm supposed to like this,
but I just really don't, and I would drift to
this other room down the hall, this small room that
was called the chill out Room. And the first time
that I was in that room and we were on

(06:16):
ecstasy or mushrooms or you know, depending on the night,
and it did have this really fun vibe like at
PG thirteen Caligular with glow sticks, like just kids making
out everywhere. But I saw DJ Dimitri from d Light
was playing in the corner and he was playing the
song and I was like, it was like this girl
singing about like Jamaica funk with these like beautiful lush

(06:39):
chords and unlike anything I had ever heard. And I
went up to her, I was like, what.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
Is this song?

Speaker 2 (06:42):
And he just like points to a twelve inch like
he's kind of smiling bobbing around, and I see Tom
Brown funking for Jamaica. But at that point, like I
knew Jamerica and brand New Heavies. That was the extent
of my knowledge of anything like this, So that was
really exposing me a lot of music. And then I
remember this other kid getting on right after him, and
where Dmitri had been like kind of smiling, bobby bouncy,

(07:05):
like kippie energy, this kid looked like had this furious
look of concentration in his eyes and just threw on
his first record. I think it was main Source faking
the phone, and he then he puts on a second copy,
and then he starts bringing back the ba ba ba
ba ba ba ba bah bah bah. And I'd listened
to Stretch, Armstrong and DJ's on the radio, but I'd

(07:25):
never seen somebody in person what he was doing. And
the room started to fill up. He played this incredible set,
and I was so like he was like slamming records
in mixing others doubles. It was like this ballet of
like the fucking brutish movements and and I just remember
being like, holy shit like that, and it was just
after the time i'd really fallen in love with like

(07:47):
Pete Rock and Tribe and that was like I was like,
this is what I want.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
To do, Like this is yeah, got it? So Dimitri
who subsequently, I guess for our listeners if line of
notes are correct, Dmitry also played a very instrumental role
and the first Tribe album he gets credited, Wow, he
gets a major shout out MB liner no idea, what

(08:14):
was his I believe. I think I asked Tip about
this once, like what was the delight connection? Because also with.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
Tip on.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
But yeah, I believe that Dmitri was key in a
lot of those obscure samples that they might have not
known about, you know, because the thing is is that
the quick version for our listeners out there, of course,
is that you know, when hip hop starts, especially in

(08:44):
the Africa Bambada era, DJ's will wipe off the label
so you had no clue what they were playing. And
of course, the proprietor of what we now know is
the cliff Notes or the Wikipedia of Breakbeat Collections, Ultimate
Beats and Breaks. It's like a twenty five volume set
record of which they will put seven of those hard

(09:06):
defined records that you couldn't you know, Shizam or people
of the shoulder of whoever's DJing during the initial era.
Now all these records are available at your helmet. You know.
Of course, as we're listening to hip hop between eighty
six and kind of nineteen ninety, you will hear a

(09:27):
combination of all those things that are on those break beats, substitution,
funky drummer, long red, just the breaks of the day.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, right, and even in a clever way like you
take it personal like gangsters, like you know, they had
definitely people doing these very clever starting to you know,
manipulate and take these.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
Flipping yeah, exactly. So the thing is is that occasionally,
I'll say, your first for araate outside of the confines
of ultimate beats and breaks is your parents' collection, depending
on how expansive they are, and then once you get addicted,
then you start rummaging through your relatives collections. I had

(10:07):
two uncles that were major collectors, So every Sunday dinner
there or occasional barbecue, I'd go through the record collection
and see deep stuff that my dad wasn't into. And
then the last place is of course the library. But
the level of digging that when I say the Renaissance
era gave us. When I say the Renaissance, I'm talking

(10:29):
about the Pete Rocks, the Q Tips, the ARS professors. Yeah,
like kind of the sons of Paul Cy, if you will,
Paul C being the what I say is the person
that read and studied the SB twelve hundred manual and
then taught it to Paul, who then taught it to
everyone else. Yeah, it's like that era of hip hop
is going outside the color lines of what was initially

(10:53):
spun back in the Bronx. And so as a result,
you know, cats like Dimitri Ta also from Delight being
as though there their quest were funk was a little
bit different, but they would.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah, and they were bringing in like exotica. I think
of that, and I'm still obsessed with and I tried
to do something. Initially, I only wrote this book because
I was making an album where I was going to
like do some nineties covers and flip some nineties things
that I loved and feeling a little nostalgic musically, and
I was like, I'll write a book to go along
with it, and I'll give context to like a friendship

(11:28):
with the Leah and my relationship to these records, and
then I wrote the book and forgot to make the album.
That's a very flip and silly thing to say, but
I got bogged down.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
I was home man, that this was a part of it,
like a secret.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah, I hopefully it will be, but I you know,
so I've been flipping all these things and versions that
hopefully will come out some day of stuff mentioned in
the book, and even that beginning of dntingly and ding
ding ding thing we are going to dance like all
that French exotica, that that silly spirit, which was also
what you know, dale us so we're doing on three

(12:01):
V Highlight. It was obviously very like you could listen
to d Light and now having you see this like
I can hear right, oh yeah, the thread between DJ
Dimitri and some of.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
The tribes and stuff. Yeah exactly, yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
No, that's super cool. I wrote a bit about in
the book as well, like I wanted to at least
cover in the book all the touchstone things of being
in New York at that time, and one of them,
of course, is the Roosevelt Record Convention. And I remember
this is a little bit later than when we're talking
about maybe ninety four ninety five. But going there and

(12:34):
seeing these amazing records on. You know, they would have
all these record vendors around this room in this hotel,
the Roosevelt Hotel, and everybody would go there, right. It
was just where Q Tip and Large Professor and Diamond
D and they would find their breaks and the more
high end dealers would set up their crates and then

(12:54):
that they'd make a makeshift cardboard wall behind them with
like the top top records pinned up, and I would
see like Roy Ayre's musical project Ramp like up on
the wall, like one hundred dollars, you know, like kind
of dream and then drooling as a kid looking at
these records. But I remember, and I told C Tip.
I don't think I even told him til I was
writing the book. I was like, I remember seeing him

(13:17):
one time at one of those record conventions and I
was holding under my arm the Rotary Connection album that
has the Memory band, the sample from the beginning of
Anita apple Ball. Yeah, and I went up to him
thinking like because I was so starstruck and geeked out
of everyone does this. Yeah, right, I was like, I'm
gonna go up to him and like say something cool.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
And pretend and then he'll bring you the Yeah. Yeah, totally,
you and I are the same. All right, go ahead,
finish your story.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
I went up to him and I was like, oh,
just like on the way out, he was wearing something
like bright Tommy Hill figure jacket or Helly Hanson.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
I remember.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
I was like, this is the uh, this is the
record you guys sample for Benita, right, like trying to
be cool, and he just looked at him.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
I was like know and just walked down. I thought
you were the FEDS and he was.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Like he was like he said to me, when I
tell this story, it's like, yeah, it was mercenary out there,
like we weren't even giving away the stuff that we
had already do sampled.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yeah, when we were first working with Bob Power at
Battery Studio, when we were mixing do You Want More?
Tribe was in Studio C trying to remix Oh my
God for the live show. So I would make these
excuses to go to the bathroom to figure out right,

(14:37):
and literally it's it's Ali and Tip and a turntable
and a twelve hundred and fife is there too? Two
other guys are there who I didn't know, and I
know that they were trying to mix. What is it's
the it's the second song on Manny Riperton's Adventures in

(14:57):
Paradise after the check the rhyme saying, uh, the second
song on that record, the dude, dude do doude do
A feeling. I think the feeling is there's something that
there was an issue, not an issue with sampling it,
like even I tried to sample it, and I know
what the problem that they were having with it. It
speeds up, you know you hear the perfect loop.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah, but it's not when you take it apart, it's.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Right and it's not like now where you could just
like manipulate it so it fits four perfect bars. So
they actually I went to see them that show. It
was New Year's Eve. It was day Last, Soul Tribe
and Souls. I went to that.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
I went to that show ninety two New Year's e Yes.
I remember watching Souls do ninety three till Infinity and thinking,
is this gonna sound weird, like because it's ninety four
now or something now thirty years later, still listening to it,
but anyway, Yeah, I was at that show. That's crazy.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah, So I think that was the last night that
Tarik and I were like fans, right, We had a
good four year streak of into like all of our
favorite shows and beat in the front row like there's no.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
There was no like aware artists too. We better not
like no no no.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
We were fans like the era of yelling go go
go and jumping and jumping like I was off with.
We were there for a caras One doing that Many
a Day, last show, Many a Tribe show, whatever. But
we were there that night and the first time I
had notes, I was like, ah, man, they should have
filtered the midsmore so we could hear the baseline better.

(16:32):
You know, they tried, it didn't work. And also remember
Raphael Sadik coming out to do Electric Relaxations and midnight
to play bass on it and his base wasn't up
at all. Yeah, I was like I was in the
front row. But then it was also like should I
go to the sound? Yeah. So the first time I
ever had notes was that. Have you ever had a

(17:02):
DJ gig where it's sort of like everyone like, wow,
look at him, go like you're really killing that Mark Ronson.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
I think I've definitely, I know I have. They all
blur together a little bit. After thirty years of this,
you know some of the highlight. There's nights that I
remember something very special and transformative happening, like the night
that like I decided to drop back in black by
ACDC at Cheat on a Monday night, like like like
something that had never been done and said like could

(17:32):
have gone either way. I remember DJing in Japan at
that hip hop club Harlem, and I remember I had
never ever got on the mic because like at that
point and in New York, like just white DJs like
did not get on.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
The mic, like how's everyone doing?

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah, yeah, with the owner of a blue super has
been parked at Double Park, Like that was the only
time you got on the mic. And I don't even
want to make it like a race thing. There was
something just about we knew that we were sort of
privileged to be in hip hop'space.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
But there's there's a voice. I don't think it's black
and white, because I to this day, as much as
I wanna.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
You don't get aius, Like I don't have the voice
that's like what's that motherfucker? Like right?

Speaker 1 (18:13):
Right? So I just do sound bites.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
You could and you definitely have a lot of a
much better voice for it than a lot of people
who are presently doing it, but you observe that it's
not something that you should be.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yeah, it was a busy concentrating the records and yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, but but I remember one night there was something
I was playing in Tokyo and it was right as
two thousand and three, right as my record UI with
ghost Face and Nate Doggie came out, and it was
a big record, and there's something you know what it's
like when you go into the booth, like or you
step on stage. Japanese crowds are so grateful, enthusiastic. There
was this thing, but I could just tell I was

(18:48):
ripping it doing all this stuff, and I could just
tell the crowd was like in this weird nervous like
purgatory between having a good time and and I just was.
I just looked down at the mic by the booth
and I was like, I know what it is. I
know until I say something to this crowd, I haven't
given them permission to let loose, like this is not
New York White Go. Every week I'm going to see them.

(19:09):
They need me to say something. And I remember getting
on that mic and then the place just like fucking exploded.
You know, listen, I've had some of my favorite ever
performance experiences djaying like, That's why I keep coming back
to it. That's why after thirty three years and I've
beat up ears and back and all that stuff, because
on any given night, you can just go into a

(19:30):
into a room like I went into Gabriella's a couple
months ago and Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I hadn't played, I hadn't
played a while, I hadn't played Vinyl and just like
to play it again to remember, like, oh, not like
in some way like, oh, thank god I still got it,
but yes, in a little way, thank god I still
got it playing for kids half my age or kids
who weren't even around when Cares's Step into a World

(19:52):
First came out, weren't even alive, Like, so I can't
remember like the one gig where it was like the
Peewee Tour de France experience. You talk, but there's just
moments and snatches of these things that just kind of
beat everything that It's why I keep doing it.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
Okay, So then the other side of that coin is
can you tell me the story of the worst gig
of established Mark Watson's life. Yeah, I mean devastating. When
you do a bad gig, you feel devastated or yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Oh it's terrible, and I go home and I'm like,
I'm gonna quit now, I'm gonna save face, Like why
am I still doing this? I think there's a lot
of it, you know. Sometimes it's what happened to me,
And I talk about this about in the book. You know,
in the nineties and the early two thousands, before I
was quote unquote Mark Ronson, I was just a gigging DJ.
Eighty five ninety percent of my gigs were club gigs

(20:46):
where I'm playing to a crowd, a crowd that I know,
a crowd that I love, that has great taste, and
maybe ten percent were corporate gigs or these kind of things.
And then the shift starts to happen and you spend
your time in the studio, you're not djaying out as much,
you're not in the mix, and suddenly it starts to
creep towards like, oh now it's like seventy five percent
weird corporate gigs on one offs and twenty five percent

(21:08):
actual gigs where you're playing for the love and whatever.
And sometimes those, yeah, those corporate ones you'll end up at,
like playing something for like I don't know, some luxury
brand in Singapore, or just staring out into the sea
of like mild disinterests like and then but somehow there's
this thing because I come from the clubs in that

(21:29):
mindset where you're like, I know, whatever costs, I'm gonna
call my way through this scene till I play that
one record that then gets you, and then for the
next few hours we're all laughing and parting. But yeah,
there's there's so many of those. I do know that,
maybe more often recently, like that terrible feeling of like
that mixture of like that nightmare you have as a

(21:50):
kid when you get up on staging you're naked. I
never specifically had that dream as a kid, but I
know the feeling, like you go to school and you
stand up naked at the assembly.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
See now I'll say that probably okay, I called the
robin Hood theory, which is basically and you know the deal,
like corper gigs good money. Now, usually those carper gigs
are older people my age, So I take advantage of
whatever was popping when you were sixteen to twenty six,

(22:22):
that's memory. So for corporate people, forty and forty five
year old people, Jesus to listen to Duran Duran if
that was their thing. Well, if you're sixty, it's Duran Duran.
If you're forty, might be the spice girl. So that's
almost become too much of a comfort zone. And then
when I'll do an occasional hole in the wall where

(22:43):
it's just like I'm not doing it for the money,
I'm just doing it just to sharpen up. Ah, that
was a rude awakening me not knowing and the methods
that I'm using now just to see what I should
be spinning. Like I'm doing everything I promise i'd never do.
I'm on every YouTube page of every DJ set seeing
what they play, like, oh, that's it.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
And who are you watching when you go to those
YouTube page? Are you watching like the Black Coffees? Are
you watching like the open format guys, or like I'm
just curious.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
I mean, it's now to the point where like a
lot of the established like Black Coffee is now playing
Madison Square Guard and he's playing a lot of his stuff. Yeah,
and so unless the one thing I'm not doing, which
I probably should be doing. Lord knows what all the
masters I have and everything is my own remixes and

(23:34):
putting on my own show. But just like to spin
records to spin records, it's kind of hard. Like I'm
at the beginning. I'm the most nervous I've ever been
djaying like I just did Heidi Klum's Halloween.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
I saw you did that, And of course, because because
we have such a shared things are a musical taste
and where we are and like the kind of parties
we play, I'm like, I wonder what he played at that,
Like what is that? Is that Halloween?

Speaker 1 (24:03):
So there's thriller, I swear to god, you know what,
there's the one year I didn't get the thriller. Okay,
So based on your wedding, who's old boy that played
your after party the wedding dj.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
Oh at my sister's. Yes, it was Charlie, that kid
who was playing like all the fifty right.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
So I realized that it's been a while. I was like,
do I know a good thirty records that have that
shuffle jazzy right? And so I decided normally when I
was DJ, sometimes I have to be my own opening act.
So for me naturally, and I think you feel the

(24:44):
same because we come from hip hop. The magic spot
used to be ninety three bpms to like one hundred
and three bpms, Right, that's where you can get all
the classic hip hop stuff.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
Out of your neap tins and tribe and everything.

Speaker 1 (24:59):
Right, So normally I would start off, I'd let like
ten records, go slow until the place starts to fill up,
and then my first records really the tenth record or whatever. Yeah,
So normally I'm a slow starter and then faster and
faster and faster, and the end of the night you
end up in house and disco. Lie, this is the
first time where I decided I'm gonna go backwards and

(25:22):
start at one hundred and seventy one bpm. So I'm
like starting with you know, you got to start at
least three Teflon records.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
So for me, like, hey, I will never die no
matter what. So like, hey, y'ah, I don't worry. I'm
not taking notes or anything. Hey you are, Hey still
is still working?

Speaker 1 (25:41):
Okay, Hey ya is a Teflon song? Okay, Okay, someone
took chapel runs hot to go and shop the song
in half. So set a ding. It's like did so,
which kind of feels like Pressen is bigger than hip
hop dolls. Yeah, like I started that fast and slowed down.

(26:05):
I'll say that half the stuff where I'm really ignorant
is I should be really knowledgeable. I shouldn't know twenty
awesome reggae tone song, especially now with the way that
is willing. You know, I'm doing the worst things. I'm
going on chat GBT, I'm gone on right, I'm calling
people in a way it's exciting that I have to

(26:27):
start all over again. How was that party?

Speaker 2 (26:30):
Actually?

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Like?

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Did you have a good time teaching at? I was relieved,
I survived, Okay, what was the biggest record?

Speaker 1 (26:36):
Like the biggest record of the night?

Speaker 2 (26:37):
Surprised?

Speaker 1 (26:38):
You see, I cheated because there are tefline memory records
that will never die. I wouldn't necessarily play want to
be by the Spice Girl in a normal setting, So
it's almost like I'm a dude totally to take notes.
I need a confirmation that I'm right, Like Lady Mama

(27:01):
a lot works. Want to be by the Spicy.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
Original LaBelle or Lady Marmalade, like.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Oh the original, Little the original. Many of my Latino
brothers and sisters used to tell me that Suave Mine
was like a joke to them, which it's almost like
the irony records, the records that you would never play
in this lifetime, like even twenty years ago. Like Ice

(27:27):
ice Baby works now, whereas we would never play that bad.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
Play Ice ice Baby sentimes. If it's the right crowd, I.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Will play under pressure. Yeah, and under Pressure now gets
the same response that Troy used to get for Peple Rockets.
You remember when you yeah, it plays me like, oh
my god, he's playing Oh my god. And one time
I was like, oh wait a minute. I know they
think I'm playing Ice ice Baby and I play Underpressure

(27:55):
and then it dies down a little bit because it's like, oh,
he's playing the original.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
And then you hit and I was like, all right,
let me just see what happened, collaborate and listen.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
And it works. So we we are in a very
weird upside down where the wackest thing. Yeah, I almost
feel now.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
Would you know, Mama number five, I'm not I would
go to lie. That's the line you're not willing to cross.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Also, but it works.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
I can see that it's no offense, Bega, No, it
was I'm in the no worse than Vanilla. I say, promise,
I'm in the.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
Game of what works. And the thing is, I'm about balance.
I've never been like anti commercial. The reason why people
are like I men, I want to spend that commercial
stuff or is because it's almost like that's all that spun.
Got a balance.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
What was Hayi Klum wearing. Isn't her outfit always like this?
She wore in a jab of the hot one year.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
She was Meduca this year and she did she put
like hair jail or dippity dew on her body suit.
I was dressed up as Randy watching first of all
to be on the red carpet, and everyone's like, so
you're right. I'm like, look at me. They're like Rick
James and I was like, oh god, so you've never

(29:11):
seen Coming to America. They were like yeah, And then
I realized I'm the old guy at the club. So
I was dressed up as Randy Watson from Coming to America.
She was Medusa and she had all this slimy stuff
and she gave me a big giant hug. So I
had like, yeah, I've been in your head. What's the
theme song that is played in your biopic when you

(29:36):
walk into a room. Okay, let me take the biopic out.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
It just in general and I can hear right now,
which is the curve your enthusiastic Okay, got excited to
let you finish.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
What's the song in your head that plays when you
walk into the room people are looking.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Why I'm about to DJ or just like when I'm
going into in general? Well, now I can't really, I
think whatever the answer that question is, it's a good
psychological exercise because it's like what you think the world
thinks of you, or what you like to project, or
maybe it's just like the music you need to hear it.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Like, all right, make it a too. What's the actual
song in your head versus what's the song that you
think people hear in my head? Earth Wind Fire is running? Okay,
is the song that I walk to that's in my
inner walk man, when I like walk into a room,
and it's not notable at all, right, but that's the
running by earth Wind and Fire. Maybe it's because I'm

(30:39):
doing the movie, But for you, what is it?

Speaker 2 (30:42):
I think in my head it's I'm just gonna the
first songs that kount of my mind are just songs
that I've made, because I guess it's like that is
sort of your theme music.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
In a way.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
In my head, I hear like probably like ghost Faces
in Nate dog OUI like la la la la la
la la, like big break beat, like fanfare strengths, and
in reality people probably hear do Dude do dude or
dot shot. So yeah, but that's our whole line that

(31:12):
we walk, you know, sort of credibility versus commerciality. It's
it's the entire conversation that we're having the reason that
it gives me some solace to hear you talking about
DJing because you're synonymous with like impeccable tastes. And the
fact is, I think of myself as like a serious
hip hop DJ in downtown New York who was playing

(31:32):
parties for everybody from Q Tip to to Puff to
jay Z to whatever. Who the same kid who was like,
you know what, fuck it, I'm gonna play ac DC
because no one's playing that and it'll be fun. And
maybe there was a tiny bit of like not troll mentality,
but like let me just see how close I can
get to the fire. And now, because I don't DJ
as much, my own credibility is so much in question,

(31:55):
like do I still have it? I still in touch
that I'm afraid to play those, which maybe it's just
in my So.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
See, I thought, now that you are Mark Ronson, you're
allowed to, Oh, I take advantage of this.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Well that's what I That's what I mean. So now
I'm like, and yeah, side means that's what I mean.
And so I'm like, oh, yeah, that's what I used
to do when I was a kid. I loved seeing
what the line was and all this stuff. And you know,
it's fair to say both of us have earned our
right to play Happy Frog or whatever. But and I

(32:27):
love playing those kinds of records because some of them
I actually do love. I can completely appreciate what spice
girls want to be able to do to a dance form,
looking at them and seeing the joy. And I always
tell you the story. I remember walking into one of
the naughtiest Thanksgiving parties that you used to always play
on Thanksgiving?

Speaker 1 (32:45):
Still do it?

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Still do Nadia? And I remember you playing rhannav and
Calvin Harris and even that just being like, oh, you
can play fun records that people want to hear and
not they're not guilty pleasure. I don't believe in that
term because I think if you like something, you like something.
But oh yeah, so's it's even comforting, Like I have

(33:06):
to play some eighties party on Saturday night. Like as
we're having this conversation, I'm like, oh yeah, like I
can lean and i can play Betty Davis Eyes and
I'll be fucking worried about any of this shit.

Speaker 1 (33:17):
Wow, you were worried about that.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
I still think about those things. It's so weird. Maybe
it's just my own pow.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
No, I'm about tabooing to death. Yeah, I'm about tabooing.
What is the first things that you do in the

(33:43):
twenty minutes of your day, the first twenty minutes, what's
the first twenty minutes of your day?

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Like, well, now that we have an eight month old
and a three year old, so like the it's definitely
waking up with one of them, Like it's probably the
youngest one is screaming. So the first thing is like
going down to get her out of the crab quickly
giving her the bottle, or sometimes my wife will do it.
I'll walk the dog, come up, and then the older
one is getting up. So I also squeeze at an

(34:12):
entire lemon into a glass of hot water, and I
have coffee, and that's pretty much like that's the first
twenty minutes a day. It's like a walk in the dog,
waking a baby and drinking hot water and lemon.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
All right, I'm only asking this based on Tarik's answer.
In your household the way it is now, when is
your alone time zone? Tarik now lives life where he
will go to bed at eight thirty pm just to
have the alone time first, just so that he wakes up.
For him, he needs to be completely alone to write.

(34:46):
So Tarik will go to bed at eight pm and
he'll wake up at three am. So from three am
to five thirty before the kids wake up, that's all
his time. That's how he knocks out projects and everything.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
So but for you, what's lucky for me is that
I have much more time during the day to do that.
Like once I dropped my daughter at school nine and
go to jam. Maybe I'm done at noon, and then
I'll go to the studio straight to like whatever Ben
and bath time is, go home, do that and then
if there's if I need to, I'll go back to

(35:21):
the studio after but I am fortunate that I have
I can carve that like you guys are constantly obviously
because shows foul and everything. I can see why his
his day he doesn't have that in the middle.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
Of the day.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
But when I was writing this, because one of the
books that I read when I started to write was
the Stephen King Book on Writing, and it's just you know,
it just gives you all the rules you need for
like the stoic carving out That book I literally went into,
like McNally Jackson, I was just like, oh, where are
the books about writing?

Speaker 1 (35:54):
Books?

Speaker 2 (35:54):
Like I was so green? Picked up that and then
Mary Carr's The Art and more on a few other things.
But it was like, He's very much like knock yourself
in the basement, no windows whatever, five hours a day,
And you know, I realistically I could find three or
four hours a day, but I had to have that.
So like the number of times that I've been at

(36:16):
thirty Rock and been walking down the hallways and seeing
you like just like on the floor like on a laptop,
knowing that you're writing your like ninth novel and being like,
I don't even know how you are able to do that,
And cram that in between what I only knowing half
of your life, and it's one of the craziest schedules.
I had to find that, Like, yeah, I had to

(36:37):
find that, carve out that alone time.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
Yeah, I just getn't wear fit in now. Yeah. So
what was your first creative project in your life? Your
first thing?

Speaker 2 (36:48):
I would go in my stepdad's studio a bunch when
I was a kid and he had like this eight
track tape recorder that I sort of learned how to
use when I was like thirteen fourteen, and I would
record little demos. I remember he had a sinclavier, the
crazy programming sampling, giant keyboards in that era. Yeah, No,

(37:09):
it was insane. I mean he was like a successful
garner when it's a barn, the money.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
That owns. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
I remember that I fucking around with it and hearing
the calliope sound from wishing Well that does the boooo yeah,
and I remember, oh fuck that that. I don't know
if that's where they got the sound, but whatever it was.
And then he taught me a little bit how to
program and sequence on it. And I was like twelve
or thirteen and I recreated Urnce Jurnt Darby's wishing Well

(37:39):
by doing like the drums first and then the bass
and listening to it to hear like what the base
going doom doom doom doom, doom doom doom doom doom do,
like starting to understand what arrangement was. So that wasn't
that's not so much creative because I was almost just
making like a crappy karaoke version of wishing Well. But
the times that I spent in my stepdad's studium making

(38:00):
demos and then recording my band's demo, that would be
the thing that comes to mind.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
Okay, So I'm gonn apply this also to djaying and
beat making. So when you first get your turntables, and
this is the thing, like most people don't know that
when you first get your equipment of choice, whatever it
is that you do, probably the best thing to do
is mirror and sort of shadow whoever inspired you to

(38:31):
do in the first pet. You know, I got a
drum machine by the time, like the bomb squad was
really hidden with the public enemy productions and all those things.
So of course I'm trying to recreate revel without a
pause and base heads like as practice. Yeah, but for
you like when you're djaying, what's the amount of hours
that you're practicing in spending like yeah, before you're actually

(38:55):
testing in this autum.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
Well, the thing was that, and I talk about this
a bit in the books. So I didn't know anybody
who dj' There was this one older kid in my school,
this cool kid who graduated by the time I got
my turntables, and I somehow I think I stole the
alumni list from this. The alumni office got his number
and called him and he was like, this cool kid
named Manny Eames is sadly I think passed like a

(39:18):
couple of years ago in COVID and he used to
work up at the stretch and Barbido show was like
an intern and he DJ'ed and I called him up
and I was like, Hey, would you come over and
give me lessons? And he was like amazingly disinterested, like
who are you again? I was like, I was like, oh,
I'm Mark Ronson and he was like like, did you
have that weird blonde streak in your hair? Because my

(39:40):
mom made me get diet blonde streak per oxide scheeking
my hair like right before my bar mitzvah, because she
said like so you won't look boring like all the
other boys. And I remembered that and I was like,
I chose to take it as an identifier, not an insult.
So I was like, yeah, that's me right. So he
was like, well, what do you know about DJing And
I was like, well, I listened to Stretch arms and

(40:00):
he's like, you know, Stretch went to our school, right.
I was like what, I was like, Stretch went to collegiate.
I had listened to Stretch of Armstrong. I just discovered it,
listened to it on the radio and he had that cool,
deep baritone voice and I was like, there's no way
that I would have ever put that together with our weird,
buttoned up school in two and I was like, no,
no way us and he was like, yes, Stretch of
Armstrong is Adrian Bartow's like class of whatever eighty seven.

(40:24):
I was like, and then I was like, Stretch Armstrong
is white, Like it was so stupid.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
This kid finally decided to come over and teach me,
and he was like, just do me a favorite before
I come over, and make sure you have two copies
of the same record. And I was like, oh right,
because I just got my turntables for graduation. I had
four records, but they were four different records. I didn't
understand that you needed. He got me to the same records.
He came over showed me the basic thing how to

(40:51):
mark up the records with tape to know where you know,
how to play doubles, and I started to practice all
the time. I spent every waking hour practice. But the
thing was instead of maybe spending my first six months
or a year in the bedroom practicing, Peter Geishin, who
owned all the big important nightclubs in New York at
the time, he was literally called the King of clubs,

(41:11):
lived in my building and his daughter and I were
good friends, and she got me a gig opening for
the opener of the opener of what like a one
night at a club USA on a Thursday. So I
was already getting pretty insane gigs really early. So I
always kind of regret that I didn't have that extra
year of like just only practicing in the bedroom, because

(41:33):
my skills would be so much higher. But at the
same time, I was just like I wanted to be
in the party. I wanted to be rocking it. So
probably what I lost a little bit in like that
bedroom skill thing I gained in crowd reading because it
was just like I was just straight from the frying
pan into the fire as a seventeen year old kid.
And then a year later I was, you know, opening

(41:53):
for stretching some of these guys downtown.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
So yeah, you mentioned Club USA. So a lot of
my for the first four Roots records, we would always
stay you know, like midtown any Ian Schrager Hotel, so
we would like live in the Paramount Hotel. I believe
Club USA might have been around the corner.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
It was, yeah, forty seven between Eighth and Broway.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
Okay, So I never went to Club USA, but I
remember one night coming home. I remember this so well.
We we just we just finished mixing Da Scat And
normally Bob Power is a daytime person. He is starts
at eight am and we might be done at six pm.

(42:36):
Because this thing is like I want a life. I
want to leave here at seven and have a life.
And you know, but I remember we had to recall
like two songs or whatever. But whatever the case was,
like it was like eleven o'clock and I'm getting back
to the Paramount. There used to be an arcade, like
I don't know New York as I should. I'm doing

(42:58):
things like getting a Turkey's sandwich at the Howard Johnson's
on the court, going to be arcade like I didn't.
And one time I decided to rnch around the corner
and I saw Tupac and all this Tupacnis leaving.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
That's a famous night. There's pictures of that. So you
saw the night that Tupac was at Club USA.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
Wait? Was that the one time he was? Like?

Speaker 2 (43:21):
Well, I mean I know that there's this one night
that it's like one of the most famous pictures of
the club. So I don't know if he was there
many times. He certainly wasn't there many times. He might
have been there two or three times.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
Yeah, well this was his ninety four ninety three, ninety four.
I just remember seeing I was on the corner of
a bodega and it just felt like you know when
you see a tornado coming or whatever. Yeah, and there's
a clip of Tupac walking out of court where he's
like strutting like this or whatever. Like Tupac was walking

(43:51):
out of what I later found out was Club USA,
because I was like, what's going on here? They're like, oh,
Club USA's down there. Tupac had just left the club
and it was just like how you imagine what the
life would have been in ninety four? Yeah, like a
bevy of women. I think Trench might have been with
him or whatever. And I never went in the Club USA.

(44:15):
I did the tunnel once, like I don't know why. Yeah,
to me, the tunnel was almost like what I imagine
general population being club in as what was Club USA? Like?

Speaker 2 (44:30):
Like?

Speaker 3 (44:30):
Was it?

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Club USA? Was much more so like all the Petergations
clubs had this like specific like they had, like the
Limelight was this sort of gothy, debauched thing played in
was a little bit more high end and had the
Keith Harringham baskeat Murals. Club USA because it was in
Times Square like really lent into the camp and Broadway

(44:51):
sleeves and there was a three story slide that went
down the middle and people would ride down it and
come out there naked, and they had these money drops,
like they would drop ten thousand dollars from the from
the ceilings and they'd be like people clawing at it
like you know, dressed say what yeah, Like it had
this very camp, decadent silly There were photo booths that

(45:13):
like definitely doubled as like you know, blowjob havens, and
and they had all these crazy it was like that
adult fun house vibe that was very much like doesn't
really exist. It was like it was very silly. And
and then also you know, there would be nights where
they'd have Leonardo DiCaprio or Tupac and stuff like that.
Jessica Rosenbloom had a hip hop night, so that was

(45:35):
probably the night that Tupac was there. Yeah, it was debauched,
but it wasn't dark. And then all those clubs when
Giuliani started his warn club Land and he really went
after petere Gation was like public enemy number one, really
and he went after him, and they closed down Club
USA first, and it was you know, because of the
way that these clubs are run, it was pretty easy

(45:57):
to get them all on technicalities and stuff they would do.
Giuliani would do this thing over at Limelight where he'd
send his dance police or whatever to make them close
the door so they weren't allowed to let anywhere, and
they make up some bullshit reason we got to look
around the place. So the line would grow and grow
and grow and grow longer to for after two hours,
so there were a thousand people on it, and then

(46:18):
they would slap the club with the summons for unruly
behavior on the sidewalk like they were just doing whatever
they could. They finally got him on some tax evasion shit.
But this was that's also in the book. You know,
I wanted to Like, I had this really brilliant editor
named Hannah Wilentz who works at The New Yorker, and
she kind of put me to task to really put
stuff not just my own experience, but like, oh yeah,

(46:41):
and then these clubs closed and then bottle service came in.
She's like, no, put this against the climate of like
what Giuliani and what policies in New York and gentrification,
how that affected what was going through. So it was interesting,
like I did a deeper dive to put that stuff.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
In the book. Okay, this is a weird question. One.
Have you ever been in a car crash? Yes? What
song was playing when you were in your first car crash?

Speaker 2 (47:06):
I actually can't remember the song, but I remember driving
back from visiting a girlfriend at the time who was
working at MassMOCA and the Taconic State Parkway that goes
Upstate is quite famous, I think for the way it
has these windy turns and at night. It's like when
it was first built, I think quite a lot of people,
like there were quite a lot of deaths and accidents,

(47:27):
and I think this could be like urban myth that
whoever designed the Taconic committed suicide out of like guilt
or something, but it's true. There's something about the turns
and the thing that will lull you into a sleep
if you're if you're tired. So I just remember like drifting.
I don't remember, but I remember waking up and there
were tree branches slapping the fucking thing. I'd driven up

(47:49):
the divide into like where the trees were, and I
look back at my dog. My poor dog's being thrown
around in the back, and I came to just quick
enough to like straighten out the car. But luckily, if
I if my arm had like slipped going this way
as I was sleeping, as opposed to going to the
left instead of going up the divide, I would have
gone off the fucking ravine. So I don't remember, and

(48:11):
there wasn't a song playing. I don't remember if there
was a song playing, but that would be crazy actually,
because have you been in a car crash of the songplane.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
To this day, I can't listen to Atlantis marsis ironic
without thinking of my first car Cress. Oh whoa.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
She's in a car in that video, which is also ironic.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
She's literally driving on the black My farm is now Yeah,
I just found out she shot up steps but weird enough,
the same conditions. I think I've told the story before
about driving thirty miles per hour to It took me
three hours to get to New York in the icy conditions,
so I can do hand collaps on Valerie.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Yeah, oh my god, I remember that. I didn't realize
that you like risked your life to like come cy.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
I was not the second you said yes, I was like, no,
this will never happened again in this lifetime.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
The greatest hand claps of all time. Like I still
sometimes like get psyched out and clap the wrong rhythm
on it when it's when we're playing it live because
I break down the to just to the vocal and
the clap stem sometimes when I DJ it.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Yeah yeah, like You're a Amy was the first time
where like a phenomenon to me was happening and I
had nothing to do with it. One I was glad, like, oh, okay,
there's something out there that moves me that I didn't
have to yeah you know, yeah exactly, but also like
I wanted to be a part of that magic. Can

(49:41):
you tell me what are the challenges of coaching Old
Dirty bastard? Wow? In doing vocals, he.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
Was just, to be completely honest, he was pretty like
medicated at that time, So you'd come to the studio,
wasn't a lot of erratic behave. It was also sad
to see he was a little bit you know, yeah,
but he and you know who he really loved. He
loved Rhyme Fest. Rhyme Fest. There was a little bit
of like crazy recognized crazy in the most sweet artistic

(50:14):
way thing. And then Ryan Fest was such a fan
of Old Dirty and Ryan Fest was writing the rhymes.
I'd done the beats and I was like, oh, you
got to say this, like you know, And he really
channeled classic ODB like a great writer would Ryan Fest
when he's coming up with it. So we had fun.
And I remember watching that weird Old Dirty Basket documentary
that came out after he got out of jail, where

(50:37):
he's singing blue Moon in the car, And that's what
gave me the idea. I was like, you know, obviously
for better or for worse, I was like, we should
get him to sing build me Up, butter Cup. I
bet he loves that song. Yes, So so that was
something I wish the track was a little better. Maybe
what I should do is just take that a cappella
and actually do it properly with band, right, and and
it just take him singing build me U about it?

Speaker 1 (50:57):
Hell ya, you just solved your yeah right? Theah? Okay,
what the hell is a glass mountain? Trust? Yeah? And
just give me the genesis of that D'Angelo collaboration. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
That was while I was working on my record collection
album and I'd written that song with a friend of mine,
Anthony Russelmondo, who like played in the Libertines and Dirty
Pretty Things. He was like an indie guy, but he
had this chord sequence that I really loved. And in
that era before I met Bruno and Jeff Basker and
kind of got like a little bit of like realigne

(51:32):
or I thing like you can't just jam with your
friends all day and necessarily think that like HiT's all
they're gonna come out of it. But at that time
I was just bringing all my friends down to work
on music, and there was also something beautiful about it,
that spirit of jamming. And so we had this working title,

(51:52):
you know, like in the back in the era of
like you would make an instrumental and you would burn
it on a CD and you'd write some silly working
title on the CD, and it was just it was
just said Glass Mountain Trust. And at the time, I
hadn't seen our friend Dominic Chreneer in a while, and
he drifted back into my life and I was really grateful.

(52:13):
And he actually came in while I was working on
that record collection and gave me really good like just
help steer the ship. I was I little lost what
I was doing, and he said, he's like, this instrumental
is kind of oh, like you want me to play
it for D? And I was like, of course, but
like would he ever do anything? And this was at
the time in between you know, Voodoo and Black Messiah,

(52:34):
you know, I was he's working on his own record,
this's long white the fuck makes me think that he's
going to work on something for me. So he played
it for D and then do you really. He said,
he loves the track, he's working on it, and then
he was working at that time with that lyricist that
he worked with a lot, the girl who wrote a
lot of stuff with George. Yeah, so you know, he

(52:56):
was like, yeah, you'll get back something back pretty soon.
And then you know, we turns to a month, and
a month turns to two months. I've started to maybe
let go of the probability of this happening, and then
three months later he sends this songback with this incredible vocal.
That's that's way.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
That's three months, so that's like five I know, I know,
I know, and it's so.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
Much it's it's the vocal is so amazing that it's
it's sort of the track is sort of now like
unworthy of this vocal, which is another reason that might
be nice to revisit that vocal and give it something
that it deserves. But he said, he left me this
voice message that said, like, yo, man, I'm sorry it
took so long. I was really just trying to get

(53:38):
to like the heart of like what Glass Mountain Trust meant.
And I was like, oh my god, it's like that
was just like this silly working title. But yet also
so touched that, like he felt the honor the thing
of this like made up working title that that's what
it was. And it was just like and it's actually
kind of cool, like what he found in and it

(54:00):
is amazing. I'm going to break out to take all,
like all the things in it. It was just cool.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
It's weird to me. So when a person does pass away,
and this happened with Prince, this happened with Like this
happened was that everyone, like I go back and listen
to their work again and it's a it's almost like
hearing it for the first time, Like I'm listening to
Brown Sugar for the first time in my life, and
same with Voodoo And despite me being there, I'm actually

(54:26):
outside myself listening to it. And I didn't realize how
great of a lyricist he is because this time I'm
listening to it, I'm not distracted, I'm reading the lyrics lyrics,
and I didn't realize like what a mark, like what
an awesome lyricism he was. And so on the other

(54:48):
side of that coin, I was talking to him, and
what's weird is that he had a little bit of
doubt of his ability and Selo made him very nervous,
like three thousand made him nervous, but Celo really made
him nervous, like oh no, like I'm not someone else

(55:12):
is in the house with us or whatever. And for him,
I know, the motivation to get through that it was
almost like a person that had to Okay, I gotta
be in fighting shape in six months for this event,
so I got to get to the gym and work out.
So I don't know what he did to get but

(55:33):
I know the beginning of that process when you know,
when I was talking to him, it was like I'm
about to do this thing for ronson and but we
were just always talking. There was a point where he
just thought like, oh well, people now have a new
soul leader and I'm not needed anymore. So a lot
of that fourteen years was also just you know, the

(55:54):
obstacles we put in our heads, our own heads that
are not a factor at all. But for him, like
when he said he finished it, yeah, I was like, great, Okay,
now we can get to your record and get that,
you know, get it out.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
But god, I can't even believe that, like that record
was like that. Now I feel even more guilty that
like him working on that. I thought like maybe he
was working out it alongside working on Black my side.
But I'm like, oh my god, my thing was like a.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
But like you could delay, you got to get out
of your own way, right.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
I still think about lyrics that Dominic Chaneer like, and
you would probably know this song because you played on it.
There was a song that I know that was probably
left off of Voodoo that still lives in my head,
just dom singing me like what the hook was that?
There was something like I used to get high and
I only get a buzz. I wish things could go back.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
To the way way it was.

Speaker 3 (56:50):
Now it's on Uh it's on a blacks go back back,
so it is it is a refrain, right, okay, But
that well, it's he changed part two the malady a
little bit or from what.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
It was on.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
He disguised it. And that's the thing when you now
listen to it, like in Voodoo, I had no idea
he was singing this is my testimony on player player,
like at the very end, right before Devil Pile comes on, Yeah,
you're this rules, And I just thought that was him
making a stupid voice. And then I was listening he
was like, this is my test deimony, but like seventh

(57:24):
part harmony, like who does you'll hear? There's a lot
of subliminal things that I didn't catch the first time
around that now I pay attention to. But uh yeah, okay,
so real quick and this is sort of a rapid fire.
What are your three teflon will Never Die songs? As

(57:44):
a DJ? No matter what, these will work?

Speaker 2 (57:47):
Did Dimitri in Paris want you back? Rework?

Speaker 1 (57:50):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (57:51):
Valerie and music Sounds Better with You by Stardust?

Speaker 1 (57:56):
Okay? What one song are you a little dismayed that
might not make it to the next generation? Like for
me the moment where I did that Troy intro and
it didn't work right. Oh that broke my heart so much. Yeah,
I wanted to cry you what was that song?

Speaker 2 (58:14):
There have been some songs that I've played recently and
like been like, oh, like I think Sound of the Police,
like still Rings off by Carros. But I remember playing
Step into a World and I'm like.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
Oh this and the scream didn't happen in the beginning.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
The scream like that does that could have just been
the crowd? But then I'm listening. Caros has so many bangers, Like,
I'm not worried for him, but yeah, that was one
that happened recently.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
And finally, will you do an adaptation of this as
a series.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
Or well, it's been an option. The book was optioned
by Plan B and Warner Brothers have picked it up
for to be a film.

Speaker 1 (58:57):
OK.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
So it's exciting, Like, listen, there's part of me. They'd
be so happy if there wasn't didn't need to be
a protagonist called Mark Ronson. It's this film about the era,
it's the DJ film. We all know that there hasn't
been the you know, the definitive DJ story, and we're
an entire culture of DJs now.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
So it'd Beef last Night.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
Yeah, yeah, So it would be wonderful if it that
all facilitated that I plan be you know my friend
Jeremy Kleiner who I grew up with, Like, they make
such incredible films as Warner Brothers. You know, obviously I've
worked on Barbieing Stars Born with them. It could be
the thing to make the nineties Saturday Night Fever. It
would be very exciting and we'll see how it turns out.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
But yeah, the music man, you know, that's all it
counts I know, Mark, thank you very much for doing
this for me.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
Thank you, I appreciate having me and of course always
Mark Ronson.

Speaker 1 (59:50):
Thank you, sir. Quest of shows hosted to by me
a mere quest Loove Thompson. Executive producers are Sean g
Brian Calhoun and Me. Produced by Britney Benjamin and Jake Payne.

(01:00:12):
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(01:00:38):
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