Mark Ronson

• 1. Introduction

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  Mark Ronson was twelve years old when he pestered Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone, until the magazine gave him an internship. By his own description he was a music nerd, and the persistence paid off. Decades later he had won ten Grammy Awards as a musician, record producer, songwriter and DJ. His name appears in the credits of records by Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars and Dua Lipa. How does a boy who simply wanted to be near music end up shaping so many hit records? What does a DJ's ear for other people's songs give him that a conventional pop career might not? And why did a single funk record, built around a guest vocalist, become the one the world remembered? The place to start is his surname, which in Britain once stood for enormous wealth.

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• 2. Two Cities

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  Notting Hill, London, is where Mark Daniel Ronson was born on the 4th of September 1975. His father, Laurence, was then a music manager and publisher and later became a real estate developer. His mother, Ann, whose maiden name was Dexter, worked as a writer, jewellery designer and socialite. The family's Ashkenazi Jewish ancestors had emigrated from Austria, Lithuania and Russia. Mark grew up in a Conservative Jewish household and celebrated his Bar Mitzvah.

  The Ronson name carried weight in Britain. His uncle is the businessman Gerald Ronson, and the family founded Heron International and once ranked among the country's wealthiest. After their success in the 1980s, they lost one billion dollars in the property crash of the early 1990s. Through his mother he is also distantly related to the politicians Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Leon Brittan, and to Oscar Deutsch, who founded Odeon Cinemas. He is not related to the guitarist Mick Ronson.

  Another Mick shaped his childhood far more. After his parents divorced, Ann married Mick Jones, the guitarist of Foreigner. Jones wrote the band's song "I Want to Know What Love Is" about his early relationship with her. That marriage also widened the household. Mark has two younger sisters, the twins Charlotte, a fashion designer, and Samantha, a singer and DJ. Through his stepfather he gained two older step-siblings and two half-siblings, including the actress Annabelle Dexter-Jones. His father's second marriage added three more half-siblings.

  When Mark was eight years old, he moved to New York City with his mother, stepfather and sisters. They settled on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where Sean Lennon became one of his childhood friends. He attended the private Collegiate School in Manhattan, then Vassar College, and then New York University. The formal tie to his adopted country came later. In 2008 he took American citizenship so that he could vote in that year's election.

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• 3. From Decks to Studio

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  "I've always loved everything. I've never had any kind of genre boundaries." That was how Ronson described his taste as a student at New York University, where he became a known DJ on the local club scene in the early 1990s. His sets roamed widely, though hip-hop was where his reputation grew. In 1999 he appeared in an advertisement for Tommy Hilfiger, wearing the company's denim inside a recording studio.

  Dominique Trenier, the manager of the singer Nikka Costa, opened the next door. Trenier heard one of Ronson's sets and introduced him to several musicians. Ronson then produced Costa's song "Everybody Got Their Something", and a record contract with Elektra Records soon followed. He was already making tracks for Hilfiger advertisements. In 2001 that connection placed Costa's single "Like a Feather" in an advertisement.

  The Hilfiger world also brought him a friendship. Ronson met the singer Aaliyah at a Hilfiger photoshoot, and the two stayed friends until her death in August 2001. He appears as a DJ in the video for her song "More Than a Woman". The video was released in January 2002, five months after she died in a plane crash.

  His own debut, Here Comes the Fuzz, arrived in 2003 with guests from several genres. They included Mos Def, Jack White, Sean Paul, Nappy Roots and Rivers Cuomo. The lead single "Ooh Wee" reached number 15 on the UK Singles Chart and turned up in several films, among them Honey in 2003. The album itself fared badly. A later retrospective review said it sold poorly, with critics lukewarm at best and dismissive at worst. Two weeks after its release, Elektra dropped him.

  In 2004 Ronson answered by forming Allido Records with his longtime manager Rich Kleiman, as a subsidiary of Sony BMG's J Records. The label would release his later projects and sign Wale, Rhymefest and Daniel Merriweather.

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• 4. The Winehouse Sessions

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  In March 2006, a camera was running at the recording session for Amy Winehouse's single "Back to Black". That footage surfaced nearly a decade later in the 2015 documentary Amy, where Ronson speaks about his career and his friendship with her. The film also shows him at Winehouse's funeral in London in July 2011.

  By 2006 the wider industry had noticed his production. He worked on albums and singles for Lily Allen, Christina Aguilera and Winehouse. With Allen he co-produced and co-wrote "Littlest Things" on the album Alright, Still. He also co-produced on Aguilera's album Back to Basics.

  In December 2007 came his first Grammy nomination, for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical. Winehouse's records earned six nominations in all. Back to Black, which Ronson mostly produced, was up for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album. "Rehab" was nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Song of the Year and Record of the Year. In early February 2008, Ronson won three awards. They were Producer of the Year, plus Best Pop Vocal Album and Record of the Year, both of which he shared with Winehouse.

  Her death did not end the partnership on record. Ronson produced "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" for the 2011 collection Lioness: Hidden Treasures. Then, on the 16th of October 2015, he became a patron of the Amy Winehouse Foundation, which helps disadvantaged young people through music.

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• 5. Covers and Collaborators

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  On the 2nd of April 2007, Ronson released a cover of The Smiths' "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before", blended with the Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On". It came out under the shortened title "Stop Me" and featured the Australian singer Daniel Merriweather. The single reached number two in the UK. It stayed his highest-charting single until 2014.

  The single belonged to Version, an album of covers released on his own label. The critic Alexis Petridis called the interpretations "an affectionate pastiche of a 60s soul revue's brass-laden sound". Mixmag named it Album of the Month in May 2007. On the 23rd of June, Ronson appeared with Lily Allen on the cover of The Guardian's Guide magazine. The album reached beyond British pop, borrowing songs from Radiohead, Britney Spears, Kasabian and the Zutons. Winehouse sang on the Zutons cover, "Valerie".

  On the 24th of October 2007, Ronson played a one-off set at The Roundhouse in Camden as part of the BBC Electric Proms. The BBC Concert Orchestra backed him, and the guests included Terry Hall, Sean Lennon, Adele and Kyle Falconer. In February 2008 he won the Brit Award for Best Male Solo Artist, beating the favourite, Mika. He had three nominations that night. The ceremony medley, with Adele, Merriweather and Winehouse, moved the charts. "Valerie" jumped almost 30 places on iTunes UK and rebounded to number 13 in the UK Top 40. Version climbed 18 places to number four. Around then, "Valerie" also spent four consecutive weeks at number one on the Dutch Top 40, his first international chart-topper.

  He toured Version through the UK and Europe during 2008, with sold-out nights at the Hammersmith Apollo and Brixton Academy. An all-female string quartet, Demon Strings, played behind him. He brought along rising acts such as Sam Sparro and Julian Perretta.

  His third album, Record Collection, arrived on the 27th of September 2010, credited to a new alias, The Business Intl. The single "Bang Bang Bang", with Q-Tip and MNDR, came out on the 12th of July and peaked at number six in the UK. It gave him a fourth UK Top 10 single. This was the first album on which Ronson sings himself.

  That same year he received a vocal track by Michael Jackson, called "Lovely Way", to produce for the posthumous album Michael. He never met Jackson. The track did not make the final tracklist, but Ronson insisted of the vocal, "It was definitely him singing." He also scored the 2011 film Arthur and appeared in the 2012 documentary Re:GENERATION Music Project.

  Another lasting partnership began in 2008, when Ronson played live in Paris with Duran Duran on the 2nd of July. He produced their 13th album, All You Need Is Now, released digitally through iTunes on the 21st of December 2010. He returned in 2013-14 for their 14th, Paper Gods. No producer had worked on consecutive albums with the band since Colin Thurston made their first two in the 1980s.

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• 6. Uptown Funk

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  On the 30th of October 2014, Ronson announced on Twitter that a new single would arrive on the 10th of November. It was "Uptown Funk", with Bruno Mars on vocals. Ronson already knew Mars's sound, having produced "Locked Out of Heaven" for Mars's album Unorthodox Jukebox in 2012. On the 22nd of November the pair appeared on Saturday Night Live, performing "Uptown Funk" and "Feel Right", with Mystikal as a guest on the second.

  The numbers kept growing. The single reached number one in both the UK and the US. It was streamed 2.49 million times in a single UK week, a record at the time. It spent 14 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100, 15 weeks atop the Canadian Hot 100 and seven weeks atop the UK Singles Chart. As of August 2022, its YouTube video had passed 4.6 billion views.

  Trophies followed. In February 2015 it won Ronson the Brit Award for British Single of the Year. The next January he was nominated for two more Brit Awards, for Best British Male Solo Artist and British Producer of the Year. At the 2016 Grammy Awards, the song won two awards, including Record of the Year. At the Super Bowl 50 halftime show, Ronson performed it with Mars.

  Jason Iley, head of Sony Music UK, praised Ronson as "a true gentleman" and "one of the most considerate, kind and humble artists in our industry." The song led off Ronson's fourth album, Uptown Special, released in 2015. It peaked at number one on the UK Albums Chart and number five on the Billboard 200. Guests included Stevie Wonder and Kevin Parker, and the record carried a dedication to Amy Winehouse.

  Next he executive produced Lady Gaga's fifth album, Joanne. In 2017 he also produced Villains, the album by Queens of the Stone Age.

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• 7. Shallow to Barbie

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  In 2018, Ronson founded Zelig Records, an imprint of Columbia Records, and the first artist he signed was King Princess. That year he also formed the duo Silk City with the producer Diplo. Their debut single, "Electricity", featuring Dua Lipa, was released on the 6th of September and won the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards.

  Miley Cyrus was the next studio partner. Their first collaboration, "Nothing Breaks Like a Heart", came out in November 2018. By then Ronson had reunited with Lady Gaga, co-writing "Shallow" for the film A Star Is Born with Andrew Wyatt and Anthony Rossomando. The song brought him an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Original Song. It also won the Grammy for Best Song Written for Visual Media.

  On the 12th of April 2019, Ronson announced his fifth album, Late Night Feelings, due on the 26th of June. He described it as a set of "sad bangers". Its guests included Miley Cyrus, Angel Olsen, Lykke Li and Camila Cabello, and the title track set Li's melancholy vocals over a warm mid-tempo dance groove. In June 2021 he shared a "re-version" of the Foo Fighters single "Making a Fire" with the band.

  Greta Gerwig's film Barbie then gave him his biggest canvas since Uptown Funk. In 2023 he was named executive producer of Barbie the Album. With his production partner Andrew Wyatt, he also co-wrote and co-produced several tracks, including "Dance the Night", "What Was I Made For?", "Man I Am" and "I'm Just Ken". He co-wrote the film's score too. The soundtrack drew 11 Grammy nominations and won three. "What Was I Made For?" took Song of the Year and Best Song Written for Visual Media, and the album won Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media. The song also won an Academy Award for Best Original Song, from two nominations.

  In September 2023, a remix Ronson made of Mina's "Ancora, ancora, ancora" premiered on the Gucci runway at Milan Fashion Week. It was released that October. Ronson and Wyatt are set to work with Gerwig again in 2026, on the soundtrack for her Netflix adaptation of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew.

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• 8. Beyond the Studio

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  In March 2003, Ronson proposed to the actress and singer Rashida Jones by writing a crossword puzzle that spelled out "Will you marry me." They had been dating since 2001, but their relationship ended about a year later. On the 3rd of September 2011, he married the French actress and singer Joséphine de La Baume, who had appeared in the video for "The Bike Song". She filed for divorce in 2017, and it was finalized in October 2018. On the 4th of September 2021, his birthday, he announced his marriage to the actress Grace Gummer. Their first daughter was born in December 2022, and a second followed in February 2025.

  Outside music, the British press took note of his clothes. GQ voted him the most stylish man in the UK in 2009, and in 2015 the magazine named him among Britain's 50 best-dressed men. In 2011 the artist Joe Simpson painted his portrait, which toured the UK and had a solo exhibition at the Royal Albert Hall. Ronson divides his time among London, Los Angeles and New York. He has long supported Chelsea football club and the New York Knicks.

  His charity work centres on young people. He worked with the End the Silence campaign, which raises funds and awareness for the Hope and Homes for Children charity. He also mentored for Turnaround Arts, a program of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts that supported low-performing schools through arts education. Two screen projects explored his craft: the BBC Two documentary Mark Ronson: From the Heart, broadcast on the 12th of October 2019, and the Apple TV+ series Watch the Sound with Mark Ronson, released on the 30th of July 2021.

  On the 16th of September 2025, Grand Central Publishing released his memoir, Night People: How To Be A DJ in '90s New York City. It returns to the club years where his career began. In February 2026, he received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music at Co-op Live in Manchester. During the ceremony he paid tribute to Amy Winehouse and their work on Back to Black. He then played a career-spanning medley, with Ghostface Killah and Dua Lipa among the guests.

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