Mark Ronson

Mark Ronson is the Oscar- and Grammy-winning producer behind "Uptown Funk" and Amy Winehouse's Back to Black.

ENCORE EPISODE — With Night People now out in paperback, we're revisiting this conversation.

We sit down to talk about Night People, his memoir of the downtown New York that made him, years before the hits, when he was the most in-demand DJ in the city.

Ronson went on to produce for Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga, Adele, Dua Lipa, Jay-Z and Paul McCartney, and curated the Barbie soundtrack. But Night People isn't about the studio. It's a portrait of a grittier, unpolished New York during hip-hop's golden age, and of a career that ran from early acclaim as the city's "It DJ" through post-hype setbacks to reinvention.

We get into the unwritten rules of DJing, why you should never play a hit to an empty room, and the thrill of turning a skeptical crowd into a sweaty, euphoric mess. He also traces how Giuliani-era crackdowns and the rise of bottle service turned NYC nightlife from a chaotic melting pot into velvet-rope exclusivity.

The city in the book is gone. The rules he learned there still run the room.

YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@theplugwithjustinjay
Website → https://www.theplugwithjustinjay.com
Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-plug-w-justin-jay/id1517322794
Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/3M3BwnadvgbuwtErUHN1pl
Email → theplugpodcast.jj@gmail.com
Justin Jay Photography → https://justinjay.com
HI 1K - 10 Years / 1000 Moments On Hawaii's North Shore by Justin Jay → https://www.hi1k.com