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Son of the City
You might not know his name—but you’ve heard his work. Dante Ross, born and raised by political activists on New York’s pregentrified Lower East Side, would play a pivotal role in the golden age of hip-hop. Named as one of Complex Magazine ’s Top 25 Greatest Hip-Hop A&Rs, Ross got his start at Tommy Boy Records, where he would sign and handle the careers of De La Soul and Queen Latifah. At Elektra Records, he would go on to sign Brand Nubian, Grand Puba, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, KMD, Busta Rhymes, and Ol’ Dirty Bastard. As a producer, he has worked on a range of hit records by artists such as 3rd Bass, Del the Funky Homosapien, Run-DMC, and Everlast—including the multi-platinum album Whitey Ford Sings the Blues and the gold follow-up, Eat at Whitey’s . Ross earned a Grammy in 1999 for his production work on Carlos Santana’s Supernatural and also produced and cowrote two songs featuring Macy Gray and Young Z for the soundtrack to Eminem’s 8 Mile. In this highly entertaining memoir, Ross pulls no punches as he details his chaotic childhood, his life in hip-hop, and all the hard lessons he learned growing up in New York as a true son of the city.
387 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 23, 2023
13 people are currently reading
175 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
July 5, 2023
I am perpetually underwhelmed when I go to the music section of the book store and see several books chronicling the life and times of classic rock gods (from memoirs to coffee table books) and in the tiny rap section there is one Kendrick Lamar book written at fourth grade reading level (shout out to Marcus Moore writing a decent Kendrick book and bucking the trend). Unfortunately most books about rap concentrate on the mega-stars of the genre and are written for casual fans.
With this in mind I opened Dante Ross’ memoir Son Of The City not quite knowing what to expect. Would it be dumbed down? Would it focus on his most famous associations (De La, Beasties, Santana) or would it get into the weeds of how the first Brand Nubian and KMD records were made? Would this be one of those heavily ghost-written affairs like that one James Brown “autobiography” I read where the Godfather of Soul was somehow writing in the voice of a college English professor? Would Son of The City capture Dante’s acerbic wit? As you can clearly tell I had QUESTIONS.
I’m pleased to report Son of The City does a little bit of everything. We get detailed accounts of music industry success and fuckery. We get the inside scoop on some of the greatest rap records ever made and the in-studio fist fights that fueled them. We get Dante’s candid takes on personal and professional relations that went sour (see Grand Puba and Charlie Brown). It’s all there, presented in a voice that feels like Dante’s. He is a self-described egomaniac who is also refreshingly self aware.
What I didn’t expect was an unflinching recounting of Dante’s turbulent upbringing on the streets of New York’s lower east side. Stories of music industry magic are counterbalanced by stories of alcoholism, poverty, and parental neglect. Getting to know Dante’s backstory gives us great perspective on the legendary character that he became. I don’t want to ruin the juicer bits but there is plenty of sex, violence, and humor to be found. Highly recommend!
With this in mind I opened Dante Ross’ memoir Son Of The City not quite knowing what to expect. Would it be dumbed down? Would it focus on his most famous associations (De La, Beasties, Santana) or would it get into the weeds of how the first Brand Nubian and KMD records were made? Would this be one of those heavily ghost-written affairs like that one James Brown “autobiography” I read where the Godfather of Soul was somehow writing in the voice of a college English professor? Would Son of The City capture Dante’s acerbic wit? As you can clearly tell I had QUESTIONS.
I’m pleased to report Son of The City does a little bit of everything. We get detailed accounts of music industry success and fuckery. We get the inside scoop on some of the greatest rap records ever made and the in-studio fist fights that fueled them. We get Dante’s candid takes on personal and professional relations that went sour (see Grand Puba and Charlie Brown). It’s all there, presented in a voice that feels like Dante’s. He is a self-described egomaniac who is also refreshingly self aware.
What I didn’t expect was an unflinching recounting of Dante’s turbulent upbringing on the streets of New York’s lower east side. Stories of music industry magic are counterbalanced by stories of alcoholism, poverty, and parental neglect. Getting to know Dante’s backstory gives us great perspective on the legendary character that he became. I don’t want to ruin the juicer bits but there is plenty of sex, violence, and humor to be found. Highly recommend!
June 8, 2023
Ross survives industry battles by being at the right place at the right time with great instincts to put hip hop on the airwaves. Pursuing a music career with an abandon that makes romantic relationships all but impossible - which makes the relationship with his dad so tender. Highly recommended if you love music, basketball or the city.
June 7, 2023
4.5 stars
Really good book on Dante Ross’s life/career.
Dude has been in the music biz forever and did it all…
If you are a music fan, you need to read this book!
Dante signed De La Soul, Queen Latifah, Brand Nubian, Busta, and ODB to name a few…
Read this book, you won’t be disappointed!
Really good book on Dante Ross’s life/career.
Dude has been in the music biz forever and did it all…
If you are a music fan, you need to read this book!
Dante signed De La Soul, Queen Latifah, Brand Nubian, Busta, and ODB to name a few…
Read this book, you won’t be disappointed!
April 27, 2024
This is a great behind-the-scenes account of both artistry and business in the hip hop world of the 90s and beyond. Definitely recommend.
June 17, 2024
I’ve been reading a bunch of music memoirs, especially about the downtown NY music scene. In the past few months, I read Thurston Moore’s Sonic Life and Chris Stein’s Under a Rock. Both books were good and explored how their respective bands benefitted from the diverse musical scenes that helped birth punk, noise, and alternative rock in the 1970s and 80s. Interestingly, both books had connections to the emerging Hip-Hop scene; Thurston Moore shared one episode where he either attended or almost attended Kurtis Blow’s Christmas Rappin’ recording; similarly, Blondie were a part of the downtown scence that included Basquiat, Keith Herring, Ramalzee, and Fab 5 Freddy, featuring Fab 5 in the song and video for Rapture. Dante Ross may have slightly overlapped with these memoirists too, but his experience growing up in NYC in the late 70s and early 80s was a little more outside of this downtown scene. I absolutely loved this book, and this was by far the most entertaining of the 3 music memoirs dealing with NYC’s downtown scene (as a side note, one other memoir, Kathleen Hanna’s Rebel Girl, was also fabulous and has a connection with the Beastie Boys, much like Dante Ross does). There were so many great elements to Dante Ross’s memoir. I found his voice to be so real and also entertaining. I loved that he used hip-hop vernacular that I haven’t heard for a minute. It added to a fun and relaxed style of narrative, even when some of his early life was not always a crystal staircase. Growing up with an absent drug addict father and an alcoholic mother who struggled with keeping a job and maintaining her mental well-being, Ross candidly and fearlessly shares how challenging this was with a wise and introspective perspective that seems to indicate how much he gained from these experiences trying to find shelter, friends, and food, or surviving, in NYC. While his mother had her own challenges, Dante also paints her as a committed activist who kept to her ideals. One story he shares about the NYC blackouts was really interesting and made me think about my own parenting and whether I maintain my principles in the face of challenging situations. Ross also shares how he helped his friend learn to read, diagnosing him as dyslexic when the schools had more or less given up on him. These experiences also help Ross explore his own privilege, despite not having much money and living a precarious situation at home. Although I knew about Dante Ross from De La Soul, I didn’t realize how deep and wide his musical roots are in NYC and beyond. Ross hung out with in the NYC hardcore scene that birthed the Cro-Mags, and shared his amazement at seeing Bad Brains in the early 80s. He also details the birth and evolution of the Beastie Boys, and these were some of the funniest and most joyous scenes in the book. I read Dan LeRoy’s great book about Paul’s Boutique, and this is another insider perspective about that time and the challenges that the Beasties faced in transitioning from Def Jam to Columbia. Furthermore, I think that Ross’s friendship with the Beasties and his participation in a wide array of musical styles early on helped shape his perspectives on hip-hop. Ross eventually falls in with Tommy Boy, helping to bring De La Soul to a larger audience. Looking at De La Soul, Queen Latifah, and A Tribe Called Quest, all acts that Dante Ross had a hand in getting record deals, you can see how his omnivorous musical tastes helped him work with these artists who were different from the more mainstream B-Boy brand of hip-hop. These acts, and Dante Ross’s role in promoting these acts, really helped to challenge the boundaries of hip-hop, extending them for the better and re-shaping the rules for what was acceptable in hip-hop circles. I think that the diversity in the downtown NYC musical scene had a lot to do with this. These acts, not quite alternative or backpack rap yet, brought in different , jazzier samples, conscious lyrics, and an Afrocentric sensibility towards fashion. It was really interesting to see this theme running through the artists that Dante Ross worked with throughout his career. I loved reading the later chapters as well. It’s not just Dante Ross’s voice that is so enthralling, but also the fact that he was working with so many of the rappers and groups that I loved in my early adolescence. Reading through this book was like reminiscing—but also learning since Ross shares some incredible stories of working with artists like Leaders of the New School, Pete Rock and CL Smooth, Grand Puba and Brand Nubian, MF DOOM (Cev Luv X of KMD), 3rd Bass, Guru, I could just go on, but this was like the wall of cassettes and crates of records in my high school bedroom. Reading about working with ODB, KMD and later DOOM provided me with an insider’s perspective of these artists, and I really liked that his detailing of his close work with ODB and DOOM helped to provide another viewpoint, showing how thoughtful and creative these artists were. I think that many people recognize DOOM’s creative genius, but Ross explains that he has been upset about how people view ODB, and his stories helped to show how intentional and creative ODB was in creating his persona and the arti and design for his album. Although I’m not a big fan of Everlast’s solo work, Dante Ross produced and really had a hand in helping Everlast get this album going. This was also a great section of the book. His descriptions about the challenges and health risks they faced in creating this album were captivating. I loved learning more about the creative process of making music, and especially the technical aspects of it. I’m amazed to see how Dante Ross didn’t really have a music background beyond being a huge fan, and worked his way up from working in the mail room at a nascent Def Jam to become a creative force in not only artist and repertoire, but also in production and beat making. It was really cool to see his own growth in the field—working with artists and record labels—and eventually moving into musical production. I really appreciated Ross’s candidness about his life, whether sharing about his family, his loves and losses, or his substance abuse and eventual sobriety. I felt like beyond the entertainment of the stories he shares, he also drops knowledge about career management, relationships, both romantic and platonic, and mental health. Maybe it’s all that conscious hip-hop he’s been a part of, but he’s skilled at subtly kicking science to the masses. Finally, I loved that I finished this book on father’s day. I didn’t know anything about Dante Ross’s dad, but he starts the book out talking about how his dad was the kind of motivating force in starting the book; his later chapters go over being with his dad during his final year or so. It was really beautiful, and I can tell that the sobriety has given him some perspective on his relationship with his father and his eventual passing. As someone who also had a complicated relationship with his father, it helped me remember the better times and how I was able to be there for my dad during his final month. I really resonated with Ross’s experience of being there and wanting to be there despite the specter and impending fear of death. I realized that this experience had something to teach me. It was kind of like a nice connection I felt to Dante Ross’s experiences. One other final note, I loved that Dante Ross described another A&R who he disagreed with as “a mountain climber who plays an electric guitar”. Loved that Protect Ya Neck reference. Always thought that was hilarious 90s stereotyping. If you are a music fan or a fan of memoirs, this is a great one to read, even if you are not familiar with Dante Ross or the artists he’s repped over time. Chances are, you’ve encountered some of the music he’s had a hand in bringing to a larger audience, whether your from the 80s, 90s, or later. Really great memoir, and I hope that Dante Ross has more books coming out.
July 19, 2025
One's enjoyment of this book will hinge upon one's interest in the life of Dante Ross. a good portion of SON OF THE CITY hinges on his upbringing and family life, especially his relationship with his once-estranged father.
Of course, the reason I decided to engage with this book was because I have heard Dante and a lot of podcasts, and he's a really great raconteur about '90s hip hop and the stories behind the artist in the albums. There was, frankly, less of this than I had hoped in this book. The stories are filtered through Dante's own prism, which is his privilege, being the author. But I would have maybe liked a little more time spent on some of the stories about the behind the scenes beefs and triumphs.
oddly enough, the most compelling section of the book was Dante's relationship to Everlast, and his production of the "Whitey Ford Sings the Blues" album, a record in which I have very little interest. But the relationship between Everlast and Dante tells us a lot about both men.
This is definitely an autobiography, and not a tell-all book about the history of rap music. Not that it has to be. I will give Dante a lot of credit for naming names and calling things as he sees them, not being vague about people he has issues with. The book is written with a great deal of humility and self-awareness, and is not any kind of ego trip. You can't help but be on Dante's side after reading it.
Of course, the reason I decided to engage with this book was because I have heard Dante and a lot of podcasts, and he's a really great raconteur about '90s hip hop and the stories behind the artist in the albums. There was, frankly, less of this than I had hoped in this book. The stories are filtered through Dante's own prism, which is his privilege, being the author. But I would have maybe liked a little more time spent on some of the stories about the behind the scenes beefs and triumphs.
oddly enough, the most compelling section of the book was Dante's relationship to Everlast, and his production of the "Whitey Ford Sings the Blues" album, a record in which I have very little interest. But the relationship between Everlast and Dante tells us a lot about both men.
This is definitely an autobiography, and not a tell-all book about the history of rap music. Not that it has to be. I will give Dante a lot of credit for naming names and calling things as he sees them, not being vague about people he has issues with. The book is written with a great deal of humility and self-awareness, and is not any kind of ego trip. You can't help but be on Dante's side after reading it.
June 7, 2023
This memoir is an essential gem from one of the behind the scenes architects of the greatest era of Hip Hop, the famed and notorious A&R man Dante Ross From De La Soul, to Del, to ODB, to Brand Nubian, to Santana, to Everlast, Ross has been the mind and ears behind some of the banginest and most meaningful music in American history. He tells his story with a candor and honesty that is filled with humor and truly wonderful tales of a golden and grimy age in New York history.
This is a book that keeps it real, and which truly shines a light on a particular era of musical genius. Dante Ross is a self-made man who has given the world a gift by sharing this story. I'd recommend this book to anyone who loves New York, Hip Hop, or who wants to know how to keep it real. Mush respect to Dante Ross for bringing his life story to us.
This is a book that keeps it real, and which truly shines a light on a particular era of musical genius. Dante Ross is a self-made man who has given the world a gift by sharing this story. I'd recommend this book to anyone who loves New York, Hip Hop, or who wants to know how to keep it real. Mush respect to Dante Ross for bringing his life story to us.
January 21, 2024
As a hip hop nerd who grew up in the 1980s, this was a fantastic read. It gives a great insight into pre-gentrification New York and specifically the L.E.S (Lower East Side).
Dante had an interesting upbringing with hippy, radical parents. His honesty about his own myriad flaws makes him a compelling and perversely likeable narrator and I felt for him as he battled his demons.
His experience as a white man in the hip hop world was fascinating to me, as a white rap fan. He comes across as someone who had a great pitch side view of the evolution of rap.
I only really knew of the author from a skit on a De La Soul album ("Dante is a scrub") but he makes a far more interesting biographer than most rappers.
Dante had an interesting upbringing with hippy, radical parents. His honesty about his own myriad flaws makes him a compelling and perversely likeable narrator and I felt for him as he battled his demons.
His experience as a white man in the hip hop world was fascinating to me, as a white rap fan. He comes across as someone who had a great pitch side view of the evolution of rap.
I only really knew of the author from a skit on a De La Soul album ("Dante is a scrub") but he makes a far more interesting biographer than most rappers.
July 1, 2023
Dante’s story is remarkable, and his ability to bring complex worlds, challenging situations, and unlikely triumphs to life vividly and with an effortless humility brings us all eagerly along for the ride.
He made himself into one of the leading pioneers of a tough and unforgiving genre - hip hop - in the tough and unforgiving music industry. And he did it with no resources and minimal guidance, other than from the relationships he built from scratch through hard work, courage, and loyalty.
It’s a fascinating read and an impressive piece of work.
He made himself into one of the leading pioneers of a tough and unforgiving genre - hip hop - in the tough and unforgiving music industry. And he did it with no resources and minimal guidance, other than from the relationships he built from scratch through hard work, courage, and loyalty.
It’s a fascinating read and an impressive piece of work.
October 11, 2023
Spoiler Alert/Disclaimer: I grew up with Dante. I've known him since Pre-K. I found his memoir interesting not so much because of this, but because of his sense of humor and his way of telling a story. I've known him as another regular kid from the Lower East Side of NYC, but the interesting thing about this book is the perspective he puts on his anecdotes, and yeah, he's a damn great storyteller, too. I enjoyed "Son Of The City" immensely, and I think that most people will, as well.
November 9, 2024
Damn, how did I miss this one?
I devoured this from the first page to the last. As a 90’s New Yorker I’ve always been fascinated by 70’s NY where this journey begins. This isn’t your typical record business book- you will really see how low the industry can stoop in these pages, I mean the writing is so good that I was clenched fisted in parts, but more so it’s a heartfelt memoir of a father and son’s highs and lows that is absolutely riveting. Easy 5 stars.
I devoured this from the first page to the last. As a 90’s New Yorker I’ve always been fascinated by 70’s NY where this journey begins. This isn’t your typical record business book- you will really see how low the industry can stoop in these pages, I mean the writing is so good that I was clenched fisted in parts, but more so it’s a heartfelt memoir of a father and son’s highs and lows that is absolutely riveting. Easy 5 stars.
October 7, 2023
I really wanted to like this. Dante was an A&R man for some great early hip hop artists and came up in gritty NYC in the 70s and 80s, things I love..
I heard him on a podcast and when he tells his story it was fascinating. The book just didn't do it for me. All the drugs and fighting always strikes me as sad and a waste of time now that I'm old. Anyway find him on a podcast and skip the book.
I heard him on a podcast and when he tells his story it was fascinating. The book just didn't do it for me. All the drugs and fighting always strikes me as sad and a waste of time now that I'm old. Anyway find him on a podcast and skip the book.
August 25, 2023
really interesting memoir of the life of one the best A&R people in the "golden era" of hip-hop. great stories about some of my favorite artists but what i really found interesting was his young life in the east village and the wild family environment he came from.
September 19, 2023
I need to hear that unreleased Casual and Del material!
December 18, 2025
I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It pulls no punches. Ross is not always the hero, his acknowledgment of his failures in life and in the business makes the wins feel that much more important. The chapters about Everlast and his relationship with his father as he heads towards his final days were powerful and full of grace. Overall, a non-traditional music business memoir for anyone who loved 90s hip-hop!
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