Mark Ronson is a multi-hyphenate with a Midas touch: a producer, songwriter, and entertainer who, since the turn of the millennium, has changed the sound and shape of pop music as we know it—more than once. Born in London in 1975, Ronson grew up surrounded by music: His father managed bands, and his mother later married Foreigner’s Mick Jones. Ronson started off as a hip-hop DJ while studying at New York University, and his debut album, 2003’s Here Comes the Fuzz, first displayed his uncanny ability to bridge musical worlds. Over zig-zagging funk, disco, and reggae, he incorporated an unlikely array of guests—Ghostface Killah, Jack White, Sean Paul, and Rivers Cuomo—that anticipated the new century’s genre-agnostic approach to pop.
Ronson beefed up his own music’s vintage polish and soulful depths on 2007’s Version, around the same time that he became equally celebrated for his production work. Along with records for Lily Allen and Christina Aguilera, Ronson co-produced Amy Winehouse’s acclaimed 2006 LP Back to Black, taking home three Grammys. In ensuing years, he’s manned the boards for Adele, Solange, Wiley, Lady Gaga, and Paul McCartney—a diverse group whose only common denominator is a determination to break boundaries and make history. Ronson is no stranger to the latter: His barnstorming 2014 party jam, “Uptown Funk (feat. Bruno Mars),” is notable not only for its chart-topping run but also the speed with which it became universally recognized as a timeless slice of pop perfection, the kind of song destined to amp up wedding receptions for decades to come. But that success hasn’t hamstrung him: Subsequent albums, like 2015’s Uptown Special and 2019’s Late Night Feelings, have found him masterminding ever more audacious guest lists while finding new ways to make evergreen styles sound entirely new.