For her January Monthly Read for the Service95 Book Club, Dua Lipa sits down with Mark Ronson to discuss his memoir Night People: How To Be A DJ in 90s New York City. Part cultural history, part personal reckoning, the book traces Mark’s formative years moving between London and New York, and his obsession with music, nightlife, and the electricity of DJing in a city that no longer exists in quite the same way.
Set in 1990s New York, Night People captures the clubs, characters, and contradictions that shaped Mark’s creative life. As Dua tells him early on, “From the second I started it, it was just such a ride...”
Much of the book’s emotional foundation lies in Mark’s early understanding of what he calls “night people”. Reflecting on his parents’ lifestyle, he explains: “Nighttime was fucking fun as hell... but the days were a very fraught, unpleasant place to be in my household.” That contrast shaped how he learned to see the world.
For Mark, DJing offered both escape and control. In one of the book’s most striking passages, Mark describes the sensation of commanding a room: “You’re giving the room a feeling they didn’t know they needed when they stepped out their doors.” The exchange, he writes, becomes “an endless feedback loop of human happiness.” But that power came with its own risks. As Mark later admits, “I used it as a drug as well... I got high off getting people excited.”
The book is also marked by its candour. Mark doesn’t shy away from missteps, compromises, or moments of discomfort. Just like working on a song in the studio, Mark says, vulnerability was essential to telling this story: “Each time I was really raw and honest, the book was going to get better, even if it was more exposing.” That honesty extends to questions of race, privilege, and belonging in the clubs where he learned his craft.
Some of the memoir’s most vivid moments unfold in the DJ booth itself, including a now-famous night when Mark risked everything by playing AC/DC at one of New York’s hottest hip-hop parties. “The idea was absurd, borderline career suicidal,” he recalls. When the record dropped, “the room detonated”.
Night People is ultimately a story about devotion – to music, to craft, and to the communities built in the dark. As Dua puts it, “You throw the best parties, but you also write an amazing book.”
Watch Dua’s full interview with Mark Ronson here, or listen to it as a podcast here.
