Mark Ronson: I skipped school for music

DJ Mark Ronson used to skip school three days a week so he could pester record labels for rare music.

The British star views the '90s as a key time in his life, as it was when he was just starting to make a name for himself.

Although the 40-year-old musician was young when the decade began, it had a huge impact on him and he can vividly remember how exciting the music scene was.

"If you wanted to play a new song and it wasn't in the shops, the only way to get it was to go up to the label and wait for the promo guy to come out," he told Q magazine. "That was three days of my week: cutting school, trying to get promos. I remember they had a really small lift in the old Bad Boy Records (founded by Puff Daddy) office on 19th Street and one time Biggie Smalls and Faith Evans got in the lift with me!"

Mark remained a huge fan of late hip-hop artist Biggie and he counts The Notorious B.I.G.'s record Ready to Die, which came out in 1994, as one of the most important of the decade. He used to play songs from it whenever he was in clubs and they were guaranteed to get the crowd on side.

"It's one of the best records," Mark enthused. "It dominated New York. There was always a healthy number of New York artists but when that album came out it felt like it was the only record the whole city was listening to. It was amazing. When I was DJ'ing you could put on any song from that record and the reaction in the club was insane."