ArtistInfo

Robert Rosen

Electronic
A.k.a. Robert Mitchell Rosen aka Robert Ozn Dada Nada OZN

Credited as Robert Rosen, Robert Ozn and OZN (OH zen) made his professional debut as a child soloist with the New York City Metropolitan Opera Children's Chorus, appearing in seven productions over two seasons with internationally renown singers Leontyne Price, Renata Tebaldi, Richard Tucker, Robert Merrill, Justino Diaz among others; directors Franco Zefferelli and Sir Tyrone Guthrie and conductor Fausto Claver. At the age of 19, he starred with Zero Mostel in a tour of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." Shortly after, he joined the Tonight Show Band with Doc Severinsen as one of its singers on the road, along with jazz greats Ed Shaughnnessy and Lew Tabackin. His Broadway debut was in the original cast of the Tony Award winning musical "Shenandoah," (album on Atlantic Records) where he created the role of Henry Anderson. After appearing in two, one-hour TV dramas, "Quincy M.E." and "Eight is Enough," he returned to Broadway as a member of the original cast of the Broadway rock musical "Marlowe," where he created the role of Fizer. A tour of "Pirates of Penzance" with Karla DeVito followed, in which he played Frederic. In 1981 he met Ned Liben the owner of Sundragon Recording Studios and an accomplished instrumentalist. The two joined forces forming the synth pop duo Ēbn-Ōzn, which is credited with producing the first commercially released record ever done on a computer in the United States, "AEIOU Sometimes Y," (Elektra Records/USA, Arista/UK) which got tremendous MTV play, went Top 20 on the Billboard Club chart and received worldwide video, club and radio play. "AEIOU" was a bizarre mix of spoken word, rap, orchestral synths and dance beats which received its first club spin by DJ Afrika Bambaataa in New York, eventually crossing over into both indie rock radio and urban radio. Their second single "Bag Lady" made the Billboard Club Chart Top 40, its video starred the late Emmy Award winner Imogene Coca. Ēbn-Ōzn's first and only album "Feeling Cavalier" went Top 20 on the College Radio Chart. The group toured in 1984 to tremendous reviews in major news and music outlets. After Ēbn-Ōzn's breakup, OZN moved to Los Angeles and started a solo act, DaDa NaDa. Already known as an outsider because he rapped as well as sang in an era when this was simply not done by white artists, other than the Beastie Boys, he fashioned DaDa NaDa as a House act as House afforded him tremendous artistic freedom within the genre. DaDa NaDa first broke the Billboard Top 5 Club Chart in 1989, with the "hip house" track "Haunted House" produced and written by OZN & Bob Greenberg and mixed by one of the original godfathers of House, Chicago-based Mike "Hitman" Wilson, which, according to MTV news, made OZN the first white House artist to ever chart in the US. DaDa NaDa's second single, "Deep Love," written and produced by OZN and Steve Wight, with mixes by Frankie Knuckles/David Morales and Bad Boy Bill also went Top 5 on the Billboard Club Chart. Distributed primarily on OZN's own indie label, One Voice Records in the USA, DaDa NaDa enjoyed a distribution deal with Polydor/UK for some of the "Deep Love" mixes. Other DaDa NaDa cuts with limited release were the downbeat "The Good Thing" written/produced by OZN/Wight and House cut "Give It All I Got" written/produced by OZN/Greenberg, mixed by Bad Boy Bill. As with EBN/OZN, Robert Ozn received tremendous international club exposure and excellent press. Touring the US in 1990, a shooting incident broke up one of his last shows in Chicago. He soon left the music business and became a script analyst in Hollywood, working for Oliver Stone, Janet Yang, Miramax, James Cameron, Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Louis Malle and Sydney Pollack. He wrote the screenplays for the films "I Witness" starring Jeff Daniels, James Spader & Portia de Rossi, also serving as the film's co-producer; and "Earth's Final Hours" starring Bruce Davison for The Sy Fy Channel (credited under pseudonym Robert Wescott). He also is credited as the Associate Producer for the documentary "Turned Towards the Sun," about British aristocrat/war hero, Micky Burn, MC.

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