Samantha Ronson

Following in the footsteps of her late father, guitarist Mick Ronson, and older brother, DJ Mark Ronson, singer/songwriter/guitarist Samantha Ronson borrows from rock, hip-hop, and pop in her own music. Obviously, Ronson — whose stepfather is Foreigner's Mick Jones — grew up in a musical household, and she picked up the guitar at an early age. Combined with her fondness for writing poetry, she began writing songs as a teenager; around the same time, Ronson also started DJing around the city. When she was 19, she decided to make music her vocation as well as her avocation, and she recruited her friends to be her backing band for recording as well as performing. These concerts and demos won Ronson fans such as Duncan Sheik and Roc-a-Fella head Damon Dash, who was a friend of Ronson's from her DJ days. Dash was sufficiently impressed with her demos to make Ronson the first rock artist on Roc-a-Fella's roster; after working with songwriters such as Damon Elliott and Dallas Austin, Samantha's self-titled debut album arrived in summer 2004.