Dante Ross

Dante Ross (born October 11, 1965) is an American music industry executive, A&R representative, and record producer. He was named one of the top-25 greatest A&R representatives in hip-hop by Complex magazine. Ross has been in his career a tour manager, an A&R person, a record producer, a notable songwriter, and an artist manager. to political activist parents John Ross and mother Norma. He moved to New York City in 1967. Ross was raised by his mother in New York's Lower East Side, then a predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood, where his mother was a nursery school teacher. Ross spent his teen years 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. As a young man in the early 1980s, he hung out at the Mudd Club, Danceteria, and The Roxy while still in high school. He frequently went to see live music at CBGB where he often saw the Bad Brains who befriended a young Ross. Ross became friends with many notable punk and hardcore groups as well as various future creatives. He credits this along with watching his friends the Beastie Boys' success with him wanting to work in the music business.

Career Ross entered the music business when he was hired as a messenger at the behest of the Beastie Boys and their road manager Sean Carasov at the newly formed Def Jam Recordings. Ross was mentored by Lyor Cohen and Russell Simmons for several years before going to work as an A&R person at Tommy Boy Records, where he signed and handled the careers of such artists as De La Soul, Queen Latifah, and Digital Underground.

As a producer Ross was a third of the Stimulated Dummies production team with partners John Gamble (1960-2020) and Geeby Dajani (1961-2019). 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 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.

In 2023, Ross partnered with Roc Nations distribution company to relaunch Stimulated Music. In addition, Ross served as a producer and music supervisor on A and E's Ol' Dirty Bastard documentary, A Tale of Two Dirtys.

Supernatural Grammy Award for Album of the Year