Dante Ross

Dante Ross
Birth name	Dante Ross
Born	(1967-11-10) November 10, 1967 San Francisco, California
Origin	New York City, New York
Genres	Hip hop
Occupation(s)	Record producer, A&R
Instruments	Drum machine, Sampler
Years active	1987-present
Labels	Tommy Boy, Elektra, Warner Bros.
Associated acts	Brand Nubian, De La Soul, Digital Underground, Queen Latifah, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Leaders Of The New School, KMD, Macklemore

Dante Ross (born November 10, 1967 in San Francisco, California) is an American music industry executive, A&R representative, and producer. He was named one of the top-25 greatest A&R representatives in hip hop by Complex magazine. Ross started his A&R career at Tommy Boy records, at which he signed and handled the careers of such artists as De La Soul, Queen Latifah, and Digital Underground. Ross was then hired by Elektra Records and was the architect of its hip hop roster, at which he signed Brand Nubian, Grand Puba, Pete Rock & C.L Smooth, KMD, Leaders of the New School, Busta Rhymes and Ol’ Dirty Bastard. He is currently a VP of A&R at Warner Music Group.

Dante Ross was born in San Francisco to political activist parents John Ross and mother Norma. He moved to New York City in 1972, where his mother raised him on New York's Lower East Side, then a predominately Puerto Rican neighborhood, where his mother was a nursery school teacher. Ross grew up skateboarding, writing graffiti and going to see punk rock shows with teenage friends who would eventually become members of The Beastie Boys, The Cro-Mags and Luscious Jackson. He hung out at Manhattan nightclubs such as The Mudd Clubb, Danceteria and The Roxy nightly while still in High School in the early 80's. He frequently went to see live music at CBGB's where he often saw The Bad Brains who befriended a young Ross and many other notable punk and hardcore groups. He credits this along with watching his friends The Beastie Boys success with him wanting to work in the music business.

Ross entered the music biz when he was hired as a messenger at the behest of his friends The Beastie Boys and their road manager Sean Carasov at the newly formed Def Jam Recordings. Ross was mentored by Lyor Cohen for several years before going to work as an A&R person at Tommy Boy. This was followed by an 8 year stint at Elektra where he was considered one of the architects of the golden age of Hip Hop. Ross has been in his career a office messenger, a tour manager, an A&R person, a record producer, a notable songwriter and artist manager.

As a producer, Ross was half of the Stimulated Dummies production team with partners John Gamble and Geeby Dajani. The production team worked with artists such as 3rd Bass, Del Tha Funky Homosapien, Santana, Everlast (working on both the multi platinum album Whitey Ford Sings the Blues and the gold follow-up Eat at Whitey's), and many others. Ross earned a Grammy in 1998 for his work on Carlos Santana's Supernatural. Ross’ production work has also appeared on Eminem’s 8 Mile soundtrack, on which he produced and co-wrote two songs that featured Macy Gray and Young Zee. Ross has also been enlisted for his remixing skills, which have been featured on songs by Korn as well as a plethora of other artists in genres as diverse as Nu metal, Dancehall, Neo-Soul and Hip-Hop.

References

• Complex Magazine
• Wax Poetics [1]
• Stop The Breaks
• Channel Dynamic
• LTD Magazine [2]
• LA Weekly [3]