Meet and greet one of Hip Hop’s legendary A&R Producers, Dante Ross, on Saturday, May 27th, 2023 at The Hip Hop Shop in Washington D.C. The free event also includes a live podcast.

Music executive Dante Ross is an American music industry executive and record producer. He has been named one of the top-25 greatest A&R representatives in hip-hop by Complex magazine. During his career Ross has been an office messenger, a tour manager, an A&R person, a record producer, a notable songwriter and artist manager.

Ross was mentored by Lyor Cohen and Russell Simmons for several years prior to becoming an A&R person at Tommy Boy Records, where he 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 first person ever hired by a major label to be specifically a hip-hop A&R person, where he was considered one of the architects of the golden age of hip hop. Ross signed the musicians Brand Nubian, Grand Puba, Del the Funky Homosapien, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, KMD, Leaders of the New School, Busta Rhymes and Ol’ Dirty Bastard.

As a music producer Ross was part of the Stimulated Dummies production team with partners John Gamble and Geeby Dajani. The production team worked with artists such as Brand Nubian, Grand Puba, Leaders of the New School, 3rd Bass, and Del the Funky Homosapien. Gamble and Ross later went on to produce without Dajani the likes of Carlos 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 Award in 2000 for his work on Santana’s Supernatural. Dante Ross’ production work also appeared on rapper Eminem’s 8 Mile music soundtrack, where he produced and co-wrote two songs featuring Macy Gray and Young Zee.