Recording Artist, Actor, Screenwriter, Film Producer, Songwriter, Record producer, Bisexual Activist
Known for
One of the early pioneers of computer music sampling,[1] producing, with partner Ned Liben (EBN of EBN-OZN), the first commercially released record ("AEIOU Sometimes Y", Elektra Records/1983) ever made on a computer, a Fairlight CMI, in the United States. One of the music industry's first white rap artists (Elektra/1983) and the first white House Music artist (One Voice/1989) to chart in North America[2]
One of just a handful of Broadway/West End performers to transition into successful music industry careers.
Robert Ozn (born Robert Mitchell Warfield Frank Rosen, New York City) (records under the name DaDa NaDa; Broadway credits as Robert Rosen; personal nickname OZN, (pronounced "OH-zen")) is widely credited, along with his partner Ned "ẼBN" Liben, to be the creator of the first commercially released and charted record ever made with a computer in the United States, ẼBN-ÕZN's "AEIOU Sometimes Y" (Elektra Records, 1983), a Top Five Billboard recording artist, [3] screenwriter, producer and Broadway actor. He's known for being the vocal half of '80s synthpop duo EBN-OZN; his solo act, Dada Nada, which continues to generate hit chart positions in the U.S. and U.K.; and for his later work as co-producer and co-writer with Colin Greene of the award-winning, human rights-themed feature film I Witness starring Jeff Daniels, James Spader and Portia de Rossi.
Biography
Early life and career
As a child, he was a member of the New York City Metropolitan Opera Children's Chorus, appearing in numerous productions in both the "Old Met" and the "New Met" at Lincoln Center. At the age of 16, he was the youngest student to receive a Key Scholarship award from Herbert Berghof acting school (HB Studio) in Greenwich Village.[4] At 17, he was accepted as a voice and theater major at the Indiana University School of Music, where he studied with Norwegian Bass/Baritone Roy Samuelson of the New York City Opera.
After his supporting lead in the National Endowment for the Arts film short No Regrets directed by Ruth Charny, produced by Ellen Sherman of Dateline NBC and his subsequent lead in the Broadway rock musical Marlowe[6] along with Patrick Jude and Lisa Mordente New York City music impresario Ron Delsner mentored him as a recording artist.
EBN-OZN and DaDa NaDa
In 1981, Rosen met Ned Liben, then the owner of New York's Sundragon Recording Studios. Liben had built his first professional studio at the age of 14 and by the time he met Rosen had worked with Jimi Hendrix, Talking Heads, and The Ramones.
Their initial collaboration, "AEIOU Sometimes Y" was recorded in 1981–1982 (released in 1983) and was the first American commercially released and charted record to be produced on a computer (a Fairlight CMI). "AEIOU" was a mix of rap, spoken word, digital sampling, rock and R&B dance music. Liben and Rosen cut their own 12-inch dance single, which was signed by Arista Records in London and in New York by Elektra Records' President Bob Kraznow before the band even had a name,[7] which eventually became EBN-OZN. "AEIOU" went top 20 on the Billboard Club Chart, establishing OZN as one of the first white rappers in the industry. "AEIOU"'s video, a Los Angeles Times Top 10 Video of the Year, and an MTV Heavy Rotation favorite garnered wide domestic and international exposure and was featured on Beavis and Butt-head throughout the '90s.
EBN-OZN's first full-length album, Feeling Cavalier, released by Elektra in 1984, went Top 20 on the College Radio Chart and their second single, "Bag Lady (I Wonder)" went Top 40 on the Billboard Club Chart. The video for "Bag Lady" starred Tony and Emmy Award winner Imogene Coca and like "AEIOU," enjoyed worldwide television and club play.
EBN-OZN received positive reviews for their album, singles, videos and live shows. They were covered in Time magazine,[8]People,[9]US[10] and The New York Post.[11] Ozn was declared the "greatest white rapper alive" by Playboy[12] and called the "new American sex symbol" by the Boston Globe.[13] EBN was also featured in Guitar Player magazine.[14]
In a 2021 appearance on Rick Rubin's "Broken Record podcast [15]Moby said the following about AEIOU Sometimes Y:
"If you have never heard AEIOU or seen the video, I highly encourage you to do so. I would posit [AEIOU is] the strangest song in western pop music history. The lyrics are so phenomenal and they make absolutely no sense - like a grad student thesis on semiotics while a guy is talking about trying to pick up a girl at a café."
After the duo's split up in 1985, EBN went on to run his exclusive SOHO studio working with Scritti Politti and Arif Mardin, while OZN moved to Los Angeles and started his own label, One Voice Records and his own solo act, Dada Nada.
Dada Nada received a distribution deal with Polydor/UK and he distributed it himself in North America, landing two top five Billboard dance hits, "Haunted House" (the first House record by a white artist to chart in North America) and "Deep Love".
His 1991 UK release "The Good Thing/Give It All I Got", written & produced by OZN, Steve Wight and Bob Greenberg and mixed by Bad Boy Bill OZN & Steve Wight, was a two-song, 12-inch single, which as an import, hit No. 3 on the Record Mirror Cool Cuts Chart and No. 25 on the Record Mirror Mainstream Dance Chart.
OZN's collaborators on Dada Nada tracks included the legendary Godfather of House the late Frankie Knuckles and House music pioneers Bad Boy Bill, David Morales, Mike "Hitman" Wilson, Steve Wight (now an associate professor of recording arts at Cal State), and Bob Greenberg.
OZN's last public appearance was the 1990 US Dada Nada tour, which suffered a shooting incident during a show in Chicago.
EBN died in 1998 of a heart attack in Soho, New York and is survived by his wife Sallie Moore Liben and son Max Liben.
In April 2015, OZN announced on Facebook[16] and Twitter that he was making his first record in 25 years inspired by the Charlie Hebdo assassinations, Je Suis Paris!. An anthem for the growing, global pro-peace, anti-terror movement, he produced and wrote the track with Gabe Lopez, who works with Belinda Carlisle, supported by Julian Coryell, son of jazz legend Larry Coryell and guitarist for (Alanis Morissette), Chris Golden bass player for hip hop star Exzibit, Gibi Dos Santos Sergio Mendes' long-time Brazilian percussionist, and background vocalists Mindy Jones of Moby and Mark Strom of the boy band Innovate.
Released in summer 2016 with remixes by Richard Cutmore, House of Virus and Mntna, the record's U.K. release peaked at #13 on the Music Week Commercial Pop Dance Chart in October 2016, after OZN recorded additional vocals with the lyric "I Am Orlando" in reference to the Orlando, Florida Pulse nightclub anti-gay terror attack, establishing it as an LGBT anthem through the United Kingdom. The track was never released to dance clubs in the US.
His 2017 record "We Can Feel It" reached number 9 on the Music Week Commercial Pop Dance Chart in December 2017 and went to number 15 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart in February 2018—his first American release since 1990.
Paramount TV announced the reboot of Mike Judge's Beavis & Butt-head series and re-licensed AEIOU Sometimes Y in 2023 as a featured music video for its 13-24 year old demographic.
Social Media
The music videos for both ĒBN-ŌZN's "AEIOU Sometimes Y" and "Bag Lady" stream on scores of Youtube channels with 3.5 million-plus views and 2.5 million-plus views respectively.[17] "Bag Lady" starred Tony Award nominee and Emmy Award Winner Imogen Coca in the title role. ĒBN-ŌZN has 700,000-plus Spotify streams on two channels.
Dada Nada's two most recent releases "Je Suis Paris/I Am Orlando" and "We Can Feel It" 1.2-plus million streams on Soundcloud.com.[18] Spotify 100,000-plus streams.
Film industry career highlights
OZN went on to a producing and screenwriting career in the film business.
He worked first for free for Oliver Stone and Janet Yang's Ixtlan Films, trading his time in exchange for learning the development and production end of the movie business. He went on to become a paid first-call reader for A-list material for Stone. He was then hired at Miramax, as reader for Pulp Fiction under Oscar-winning producer Richard Gladstein and as contract development exec for much of their European fare and some of horror division Dimension Films' material. He also served as script analyst at Creative Arts Agency (CAA) on projects for Sydney Pollack, Louis Malle, Paula Weinstein and James Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment.
OZN and writer/producer Colin Greene (now a Vice-President at Sony Studios) sold Storm Warning, a $100 million-plus film, to Paramount for producer Mario Kassar, making the front page of the Daily Variety.[19]
In 2003, OZN and Greene's God's Witness, long on many of the industry's "favorite un-sold spec scripts" lists, was finally made as I Witness, starring Jeff Daniels, James Spader and Portia de Rossi, for which the writing team received the 2003 Method Fest Best Screenplay Award. Universal released the film in the U.S. and Canada in 2007 and HBO released it internationally.
OZN left the industry in 2003 to raise his children and returned in 2008, as part of the production team of "Turned Towards the Sun," a UK documentary about the British aristocrat, war hero, London Times correspondent, author and out bisexual Micky Burn.[20] The film premiered at the British Film Institute in London in October 2012 to excellent reviews, earning director Greg Olliver a Grierson Award nomination.
OZN then wrote a feature for the Sy Fy Channel, "Earth's Final Hours," which was produced in 2011 by Cinetel and aired in 2012.
A guest at the Obama Administration's 2016 White House Bisexual Community Briefing,[21] Mr. Ozn was the Chairperson of the Los Angeles Bisexual Task Force,[22] a bisexual advocacy non-profit operating out of the Los Angeles LGBT Center, presenting workshops for LGBT youth at the Center and University of Southern California as well as pressing for political change within and without the LGBT community. http://www.bicenter.org.
In October 2015, OZN founded The Je Suis Charlie Movement (JSCMovement) a social media project on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, launched in response to continued worldwide terror attacks, created to show solidarity with all victims of terror. Fine and performing artists post their work online as a sign of support, while followers share and like posts - all to raise awareness. http://www.JSCMovement.com.
Return to live performing
After a 32-year absence since the suburban Chicago shooting at a Dada Nada performance, OZN made his first live appearance in July 2023 as one of the guest artists at 80s Rock Star Nights at the Huntington Beach, California Biergarten Club, which also produced the series in partnership with Alt-80s Music cover band The Reflexx. The series included artists from The Go Gos, Josie Cotton, and others. He was introduced by KROQ and Sirius XM celebrity DJ Richard Blade.
Awards and honors
Judge: Writers Guild of America Awards (longform) 2006, 2005, 2004
LA Times Video Top 10 of the Year for EBN-OZN's "AEIOU Sometimes Y"
City of West Hollywood's "Celebrate Bisexuality Day" September 23, 2017, Proclamation Awarded to Robert Ozn on Behalf of the Los Angeles Bi Task Force.
References
^"Fairlight – The Whole Story". Audio Media magazine (January 1996
