Night People: How to Be a DJ in '90s New York City

by Mark Ronson Narrated by Mark Ronson

Overview

Capturing the music, characters, escapades, and energy of his DJ days, a profound memoir from seven-time Grammy-winning record producer Mark Ronson.

Lady Gaga, Adele, Amy Winehouse, Dua Lipa, Bruno Mars, Miley Cyrus, the Barbie soundtrack-behind some of the biggest musical moments in the past two decades is one man: Mark Ronson. Night People conjures the undeniable magic of the city's bygone nightlife-a time when clubs were diverse, glamorous, and a little lawless, and each night brought a heady mix of music, ambition, danger, delight, and possibility. It's about the beauty of what you can create with just two Technics and a mixer, in a golden era before Giuliani, camera phones, and bottle service upended everything. It's also about a teenager finding his way-stalking DJ Stretch Armstrong and biting his mixes, crate-digging in every corner of New York, grinding gig after gig through a decade of incredible music-and finding a community of people who, in their own strange, cracked ways, lived for the night.

Organized around the venues that defined his experience of the downtown scene, Ronson evokes the specific rush of that decade and those spaces-where fashion folks and rappers on the rise danced alongside club kids and 9-to-5'ers-and invites us into the tribe of creatives and partiers who came alive when the sun went down. A heartfelt coming-of-age tale, Night People is the definitive account of '90s New York nightlife and the making of a musical mastermind.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"In Night People, Mark Ronson tells his own sweet, intimate, and sometimes extremely funny story of what it’s like to be inside an era of pure musical magic before anyone but you and your friends even know it’s happening. His is a perfect New York tale — the kind that makes you jealous you weren’t there, grateful for your own version, and racing to make a playlist so you can visit this world anytime you want. It’s also about the power of obsession with the thing you love, and how it can drive you to find your people, the ones who will eventually introduce you to yourself.” 
 —Lizzie Goodman, author of the New York Times bestseller Meet Me in the Bathroom

"Night People is not just Mark Ronson’s origin story. It’s a snapshot of 1990s New York City from a figure at the epicenter of its culture. It’s a book about the life of a DJ, by a DJ, in the same groundbreaking way that Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential illuminated the life of a chef. And it’s also a lovely, sweet story about a small family and a tight community, even though you may know these people’s names well. This quadruple blend is not surprising: It comes from pop music’s master synthesist.” 
 —Dan Charnas, author of the PEN Award-winning, New York Times Bestseller Dilla Time, and The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop

“Mark Ronson’s transporting memoir is a New York bildungsroman about an uptown kid with a downtown heart that beats to hip hop while longing for a sound that’s all his own. Night People reads like a playlist of life's hard knocks and small triumphs that somehow flows effortlessly on the page, not unlike his talent as a DJ to mix songs that kept the crowd shaking on the dance floor.” 
 —Griffin Dunne, author of the New York Times bestseller The Friday Afternoon Club

“In Night People, Mark Ronson goes time-traveling through his life and returns with a wry, sharp, moving, evocatively detailed story of discovery, and self-discovery, and of how it feels to fall head-over-heels in love with pop music.”
 —Michael Chabon

"Thoroughly charming...An endearing memoir from a musician who’s more than just Mark."
 —Kirkus Reviews

"A wondrous snapshot of a bygone New York."—Publishers Weekly

Kirkus Reviews

2025-06-13
A pop music star reflects on his early days as a New York DJ.

Songwriter and record producer Ronson is no stranger to the top of the charts. He produced Amy Winehouse’s blockbuster albumBack to Black and scored an inescapable megahit of his own with the 2014 single “Uptown Funk.” (Movie fans might know him from his early cameo inZoolander and for co-writing the earworm “I’m Just Ken” fromBarbie.) Before all that, though, he was (and still is) a DJ, and his debut book focuses on his rise from a kid with a set of turntables he got as a high school graduation present to one of the country’s most in-demand record spinners. Ronson recalls his early life as a child in London, the son of parents who “were good people, but not good together,” and his move to New York, with his sisters, mother, and her new partner, Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones. He talked his way into DJ gigs, writing of one event, “I already had advantages that most others didn’t. My mother bought me the gear. I was raised by a musician with a home studio. But this was an absurdly lucky break, even for me.” Ronson writes beautifully about the allure of the nightclub: “For someone who grew up amid chaos and uncertainty, the DJ booth was the perfect refuge—a one‐man command center, where every fader and dial bent the world to my will.” His chronicle of his rise to success is entertaining, funny, and humble; while he allows that he’s good at his job, he remains well aware of the role that chance played in his career. You don’t have to love dance music to enjoy this thoroughly charming memoir.

An endearing memoir from a musician who’s more than just Mark.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940194586950
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	09/16/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged

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