So since Ears To The House went on a sabbatical to make the changes you see before your very eyes today, a few things have happened in the world. The Russians staging what they laughably call a “special military operation” in Ukraine to apparently rid the country of Nazïs is probably one of the better documented ones.
The DJ world has largely responded in its usual way to events – by ignoring it. You see, there’s money to be made after two years of pandemic induced uncertainty, and enough desperation amongst DJs to get aforementioned money that they’ll say quiet. Saying anything about anything in this highly conservative culture is one risk too far, it seems.
But there is one DJ who is more than willing to stick her head above the parapet – mostly because she’s living through it. Ukrainian DJ Nastia has had plenty to say over the past few months. She can only continue in her job so due to being female – all Ukrainian men between 18 and 60 years old are under orders to remain in the country and could be called up for military service at any time.
It’s been refreshing to see someone in the timid dance music world being unafraid to speak their mind – and one person whom Nastia has mentioned recently was Russian DJ Nina Kraviz, whose stance on the war remains vague, to say the least. And this particular Instagram post was especially interesting…
Nastia starts by claiming “Nina Kraviz is preparing some kind of interview to ‘clarify’ her silence”, and calls her a “pro-Putin patriot”. This post was published on April 9th – and as of 44 days later, Ears To The House has been unable to find any subsequent interview with Kraviz anywhere.
Indeed, all she has said in recent months was this painfully orchestrated and stage-managed statement last week which answered none of the questions aimed in her direction since the war in Ukraine started. So what happened?
A source with close connections to most of the dance music press claimed that “Many of the big news outlets in dance music simply didn’t want to get involved with this one. But the truth is most of them were never offered an interview, nor did they request one.”.
If true, it suggests the Kraviz management team initially believed an interview was a good idea before apparently backtracking later – no one responded to requests from Ears To The House for comment. But what could have caused the change of heart?
We reached out to a large PR agency in the music industry – the boss agreed to speak to Ears To The House on condition of anonymity. They said “Any prospective interview from someone like Nina Kraviz has the potential to go badly wrong, especially when you bring politics or war into it. And if I was advising Kraviz, I’d tell her not to do it. It would probably make things worse short term and have no effect long term. It’ll soon be forgotten about.”
“There’s also the Nastia stuff. An interview meant to be about clarifying her views on war could just play right into Nastia’s hands. Politics divides people and that’s why my firm always advises our clients to say as little about it as possible.”.
The saga continues – but if Kraviz and her people inevitably have their way, probably not for long…
