Robert Ozn

Robert Ozn (born Robert M. Rosen, New York City) (records under the name DaDa NaDa; Broadway credits as Robert Rosen; personal nickname OZN, (pronounced "OH-zen")) is a Top Five Billboard recording artist, screenwriter, producer and Broadway actor.

He's known for being the vocal half of '80s synthpop duo EBN-OZN; his solo act, Dada Nada; 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.

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.

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.

As a teenager, he went on the road as a singer with Doc Severinsen and The Tonight Show Band, working with Lew Tabackin, Ed Shaughnessy, Snookie Young, Tommy Newsom, Ross Tompkins, Buddy Rich and Mel Tormé.

His first professional musical theatre role was that of Hero in a tour of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with Zero Mostel.

Shortly after, he created the role of Henry Anderson in the original Broadway cast of the Tony Award winning musical Shenandoah starring John Cullum, which originally premiered at the Goodspeed Opera House.

Subsequent acting work: leads in Vagabond Stars a pre-Broadway piece at the Berkshire Theater Festival with lyrics written by The Newsroom's Executive Producer/Director Alan Poul, Pirates of Penzance with Karla DeVito, and the LA company of Sam Shepard's Curse of the Starving Class with Gary Sinise and James Gammon.

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 along with Patrick Jude and Lisa Mordente New York City music impresario Ron Delsner mentored him as a recording artist.

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, 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, People, US and The New York Post.

Ozn was declared the "greatest white rapper alive" by Playboy and called the "new American sex symbol" by the Boston Globe.

EBN was also featured in Guitar Player magazine.

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".

OZN's last public appearance was the 1990 US Dada Nada tour, which suffered a shooting incident during a show in Chicago.

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.

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 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.

EBN/OZN's "AEIOU Sometimes Y" has over 2 million views on scores of YouTube channels.

"Bag Lady" starring Imogen Coca as over 900,000 views on dozens of YouTube channels.

Dada Nada's two most recent releases "Je Suis Paris/I Am Orlando" and "We Can Feel It" have over 1.2 million streams on Soundcloud.com.

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.