Mark Ronson • Artist, Producer, DJ

New York City, 1994. Fresh out my freshman year at Vassar College, I’d only been DJing about a year but I was already getting decent gigs that summer — house parties, hip-hop open mic nights and more than a few not-entirely-cool bars around the Upper East Side. The venues didn’t matter to me. There was nothing in the world I enjoyed more than spinning records. To paraphrase Peter Venkman… no job was too small, no fee was too small.

On my nights off, I went to parties like Giant Step & Soul Kitchen. Worlds apart from the venues I was playing, these were the holy grail of hip New York. They had the very best DJs (Stretch Armstrong, DJ Jules, DJ Enuff, DJ Hiro, Frankie Inglese) and the most beautiful array people (models, rap stars, ballers, art kids, skaters, drug dealers, etc.). The city had the hottest nights in what was then the global capital of nightlife. I may have fantasized about DJing at these clubs from time to time but I harbored no grand illusions that I’d be playing these places any time soon. I’m a pragmatist, however, and I armed myself with a strong supply of my own DJ demo tapes, on the off chance I was out and met a club owner who could potentially be a future employer.

On one such night while at Soul Kitchen, my high school pal Courtney introduced me to her new friend Carlos, who, along with his partner-in-nightlife Bill Spector threw the best hip-hop parties in all of downtown Manhattan, hands down! I saw my window of opportunity, gave Carlos the hard sell and handed him my tape, though I never expected to hear back. He and Bill had the best DJs in the city on rotation — they certainly didn’t need to give a gawky, teenage, no name a shot. So I was shocked when I got that call a few days later, asking if I wanted to play the opening slot at their new party the coming Friday.

I’ve put my brain through some wear and tear over the years and honestly have a hard time remembering names of places I played last week, but I will never forget the name and address of that party: Nut n’ Honey at Tilt, 179 Varick Street (corner of King Street, for extra credit). I remember the burnt orange ambience of the club lighting, how it was bathed in smoke. I remember how the Rane crossfader felt under my hand as I dropped Nice & Smooth’s “Old to the New.” I remember being thrilled to meet DJ Jules but trying to play it cool. And I remember going downstairs and hearing Stretch do a live blend of R. Kelly “Your Body’s Callin’” over the instrumental of Jeru’s “Come Clean” that blew my mind and had the main dance floor in a sweaty rhapsody. Damn, this really was it! It was going to be hard to go back to playing my other bumble-fuck gigs after having this taste of the high life.

Luckily, I did a good job that night… plus, it probably didn’t hurt that I was cheap labor. Either way, I got a callback and after a few more gigs, I earned the coveted kudos of having my name on a flyer. I can’t overstate the importance of this; there, on a glossy piece of card was my name “Mark Ronson” printed right under “Stretch Armstrong,” maybe a few font sizes smaller but I didn’t care. Those flyers went everywhere. They were handed out by the hundreds on 14th Street and sat by the doors of Phat Farm, Supreme and Union. But still, it wasn’t the ego-stroke of “now the world will know my name!” It was the fact that it made it real. Before the internet, there weren’t many ways to prove your status unless you were legitimately famous. But this seal of approval sort of made me downtown famous — which was more than enough for me.