DJ Empress won’t welcome the attention this post will bring. Apparently, she’s decided to stop talking about it because “it’s not part of my mindset of abundance” – which, roughly translated, means “I’m going to stop talking about it because people are criticising me”.
Anyway, a couple of days ago, the DJ posted on her Facebook page about a row she’d had with promoter Christian Bruna. Her account is that she declined to play because Bruna had to ask the other two DJs whether she could also be listed as a headliner. She took this to be “sexist” and posted a number of less than polite messages from the man himself.
There’s just one problem. Her account of events is almost entirely false. Bruna has decided to post the original conversation about the booking, and it reveals a number of things that DJ Empress curiously omitted to mention in her online rant.
For starters, she claimed she was asked to play for free. The screenshots demonstrate this is false. His words were “I’m paying the DJs out of my own pocket, so before I offer you a said amount, let me see who’s down… and I’ll crunch the numbers”. At no stage in the conversation is she told she will have to play for nothing.
Next, let’s assess her claim that being listed as headliner would be subject to the approval of the two other male DJs. Some of the wording from Bruna in this section is a little clumsy, but this is the worst charge that can be thrown at him.
Empress requests headline billing, saying “if that can’t be accommodated, I don’t have any desire in playing”. Although it’s true that Bruna initially appears to suggest this would be subject to agreement from the other two DJs, he quickly clarifies, stating he “hasn’t heard back from them yet” on their bookings.
Empress is clearly stating that she wants headliner status alone here and is deeply unhappy with the idea of sharing it, saying “what has he done recently” of one of the other DJs. So this claim doesn’t stack up either.
Finally, Empress claims that Bruna subjected her to a tirade of abuse. This is also largely false. The selective screenshots that she posted on social media were taken after she publicly attacked him as a sexist and misogynist.
One might have hoped that Empress would have a greater awareness of what putting someone in this position would mean for them. Only last year, she was viciously attacked by trolls and misogynists after revealing her appalling treatment at the hands of dead rapist Erick Morillo.
For all her social media boasts about mental health, she obviously has no regard for Bruna’s. She comes across as utterly tone deaf, and as a narcissistic liar with a massive ego. It just goes to show that if you want to “put people on blast”, as Empress has been saying, you’d better be prepared to publish entire conversations – otherwise, someone else will…
she outright lied and/or fabricated and omitted key details in the back and forth exchange, CB had the receipts, she was never asked to play for free, when asked if Dara and Dieselboy had a say if she would be a headliner was told NO, was assured she’d get appropriate billing on the lineup, all in all, it looks like CB just wanted to throw a party to try to get NYC DNB scene back on track after a year plus of no parties and wanted to involve the local “legends” to make it happen, even coming out of pocket to do so, she only seemed to care about being top dog on the lineup, FYI, while it’s a great personal accomplishment to release a track on a RAM compilation album, it means very little if u still can’t draw a crowd to pack out konkrete jungle (rip), check that ego at the door, jungle owes you nothing
yet ppl blasted me for saying CB was not being sexist. as a promoter i have asked ppl if they wanted to share top billing a million times regardless of sex. i guess you cant disagree with anyone esp a female now adays
Wow you guys actually took the time to write about this , amazing. Way to put NYC dnb ‘s dirty laundry out there even more. We were doing just fine without Bruna The Disrupter, bringing trouble back to NYC.