{"id":31050,"date":"2025-09-19T06:54:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T06:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/31050\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T06:54:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T06:54:06","slug":"night-people-by-mark-ronson-review-a-superstar-djs-coming-of-age-autobiography-and-memoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/31050\/","title":{"rendered":"Night People by Mark Ronson review – a superstar DJ\u2019s coming of age | Autobiography and memoir"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is bizarre to learn that, despite a\u00a0career spent desperately trying to fill the dancefloor, reading the room night after night to predict how he might make it pop off, Mark Ronson<\/a> never dances \u2013 \u201cunless you count standing around, bobbing my head, and reciting rap lyrics as dancing\u201d.<\/p>\n

Night People is intended as Ronson\u2019s memoir but is as much an attempt to immortalise the people and\u00a0scenes he came up in as it is a\u00a0reflection on a childhood shaped by the late-night parties hosted by his parents \u2013 first in London, where a distant memory of Robin Williams tucking him in to bed with \u201cNanu nanu\u201d floats through, then later in Manhattan, when his mother marries Mick Jones from Foreigner.<\/p>\n

By his own, self-aware account, Ronson has led a gilded life. Elite schools (Collegiate, Vassar, NYU); sleepovers with Sean Lennon and a cast of New York\u2019s nepo who\u2019s who; hanging out with Michael Jackson; the abundant creative freedom gifted by the safety net of generational wealth. It would be enough to make many readers roll their eyes before turning a single page. Their loss.<\/p>\n

Ronson\u2019s talent as a writer enables him to render this privilege, the background glamour, his awkward stumbles as well as successes, with a\u00a0kind of wry, soft self-deprecation that is genuinely endearing. It helps, of\u00a0course, that he is a massive nerd. \u201cI\u00a0had the rhythm to play the music, but not the confidence to let go,\u201d he writes in that throwaway line about dancing. It\u2019s both deeply revealing and\u00a0hard to get your head around. Ronson would rather spend paragraphs enthusing about the thickness of slipmats required for a\u00a0specific DJ setup than he would recalling the wild-eyed buzz generated at an afterparty close to dawn. On balance, this is a good thing. There is more than enough bad writing on hedonism in the world. I\u2019ll take the earnest, qualitative review of turntable cartridges.<\/p>\n

This is not supposed to be a definitive history of 90s club culture, but it\u2019s a vivid snapshot told from a unique perspective<\/p>\n

In Night People, the debauchery \u2013 of\u00a0the best and worst kind \u2013 is alluded to rather than gratuitously revelled in. There are passing references to taking heroin (wait, what?) and late nights dieting on a menu of uppers and vodka\u00a0cranberry, but without the detail that could tip into cliche. Instead, Ronson is faithfully reverent to the many people who helped a\u00a0gawky Jewish, London-born hip-hop fan from the Upper West Side to become synonymous with the 90s celebrity-model party scene. It\u2019s not an\u00a0era of New York nightlife that has\u00a0been particularly eulogised. Understandable, given it was preceded by the white-hot energy of the 70s and 80s and, I suppose, because it\u2019s difficult to romanticise a period during which dancefloors began to give way to velvet-roped club lounges, bottle service and a scene built around being\u00a0seen.<\/p>\n

Still, Ronson gives it a great shot. The impact of mayor Rudy Giuliani\u2019s crackdown on crime and clean up of the city is told through the lens of its night-dwellers. The east coast-west coast hip-hop rivalry is documented through the many characters that kept the city hyped. It\u2019s not supposed to be a definitive history of 90s club culture, though Ronson interviewed dozens of friends, DJs, bouncers, promoters and clubbers to help piece together his memories. But it\u2019s a vivid social and cultural snapshot.<\/p>\n

The one-man hit factory, the force who famously drove Amy Winehouse to create her best work, the mega producer who just celebrated his 50th birthday \u2013 none of that is here, of course. At the centre of this book is a\u00a0Ronson much closer to the teenage crate-digger whose mum bought him his first Technics turntables and who blagged his way to the booth. It shouldn\u2019t be as compelling as it is, but\u00a0for the accompanying soundtrack of deep cuts alone, Night People is well\u00a0worth a spin.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

Night People: How to Be a DJ in 90s New York City by Mark Ronson is published by Century (\u00a325). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com<\/a>. Delivery charges may apply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is bizarre to learn that, despite a\u00a0career spent desperately trying to fill the dancefloor, reading the room…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[489,156,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-31050","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}