This morning when I opened the digital news app of one of the most well known Dutch music platforms '3voor12', I read something that caught my interest in such ways I had to dig deeper. The electronic music industry is apparently ditching one of the big names in the techno scene, Nina Kravitz. I know her as a DJ and producer of techno. Apparently, she is a singer also (source). I didn't know that at all, though I've heard some creations from her own hands with vocals in more recent years. If I remember correctly, this was for the game Cyberpunk 2077. Though I did like her DJ sets back in the days when I discovered her, lately they don't touch my soul anymore. Her Cyberpunk 2077 work was maybe the worse of all. But all that aside. It is not my intention to review her work in this post, but talk about the somewhat disturbing news that various organisations in the industry are declining to work with Nina. Is she falling victim to the 'cancelling' culture we seem to have embraced?
According to the latest news article by '3voor12' (source) yesterday the Dutch festival 'The Crave' announced to de-scope Nina from their lineup with a simple message: "We have to inform you that after long and intensive discussions, both internally and externally, we have decided that Nina Kraviz will no longer play at The Crave 2022." This happened just days after the announcement by the Dutch label 'Clone Records' to discontinue the collaboration with Nina's own label 'Trip Recordings'. The German festival 'Pollerwiesen' also took Nina from their lineup. Movement Festival in Detroit, the city where Techno was invented back in the early 80s, announced to re-evaluate the booking of Nina. One of the world-leading Techno organisations 'Awakenings' didn't comment yet regarding her bookings.
But what is the reason for all this? A question that I wanted to get answered when reading all this. Some high-level insinuations in the article: Nina didn't distance herself from mister Putin over the war between Russia and Ukraine. Insinuations that Nina is not independent, but at the side of Putin.
Many articles are like the '3voor12' one. Barely touching the topic. No details. Don't journalists have pride in their work anymore? Do they just want to push the headlines whilst having no idea of the real situation? No appetite to dig in deeper? To try and find the nuances?
Fortunately, with some effort, I came across a (much) more detailed article published by 'Time' with the headline 'A Russian DJ's Silence About Ukraine Is Dividing the Electronic Music Scene' (source). Since I have Nina in my follow list on Instagram, I know she is very active. However, I can have weeks to months I don't open my Instagram app, hence I totally missed the fact she stopped posting since the war started. Except for 1 post, something about 'Peace', just after the war started. In recent weeks just a handful of posts with Nina sitting in her studio listening to music. Three days ago, in 4 images (source), her reaction to the most recent events in which see essential says that she is in no way involved in politics and she doesn't want to, she is against war and violence, she wants to continue to unite people through music, she didn't choose her place of birth and she will not censor artists for her label based on country of birth or anything else. Three days old and since then more cancellations came her way.
The whole situation with Russians is very sensitive at the moment. We all know that. It seems most of us want Russians to announce publically being against Putin and his regime. However, all those who think like that don't realise what this may mean for Nina (and all those other Russians for which we more or less demand to take sides publically). As can be read in the 'Time' article, Russian artist Alexandra Skochilenko is facing 10 years of jail time for spreading fake news (source). Nina does live in Moscow, therefore directly under the control of Russians law and police. Whatever she says, can be held against her. When the Russian authorities want to do so, Nina can be thrown in jail. If I would be in such a situation, I would think twice before making a stand against the Russian regime.
However, a bunch of artists from Ukraine are actively pushing organisations to not book Russian artists that keep quiet over the war. Added to that, also non-Ukraine artists speak out and conclude that those that stay silent are ok with the brutalities of the Russian regime.
Can you believe that?
This phase we are in is beyond my comprehension. I literally don't know anymore what I should think of people in general and in particular my most beloved scene in the music space. Silence mean Cancelling? Really?
Even when past events may suggest a certain bias towards a certain side, why the hell wasn't anything done before? In Nina's case, the suggestion she may be ok with the actions by mister Putin could already be made more than 10 years ago. But, back then we didn't have this 'cancelling' culture. And now we have it, the cancelling culture, we seem to apply this to almost everything and everyone. Whether it is over the war between Russia and Ukraine, Me2, Conspiracy Theorists, you name it. The cancelling culture may have become our latest pandemic disease. Can we get some vaccine for this? Please! Let us get back to kinda 'normal' behaviours again in which we respect one another, in which we allow bi-directional civilised communication before we draw conclusions and start witch hunts.
Before I started to write this blog post, I didn't know what direction my fingers would take me. By now, I know that I'm so much against the current witch hunt on Nina. We may have influencers, something we always had before, but that doesn't mean those influencers shall use their power for political reasons. Even though one can argue that 'raving' more or less was born to take a stand against current political situations, for most of us the 'rave' is an experience of unity and pleasure and serves as a break from our normal daily lives. Nobody shall be forced to take political sides. Not you, not me, not anybody. Even when we have influence over others. And when somebody decides not to speak out, we simply cannot draw conclusions from that as well as we shall not condemn such position and for sure as hell not start a witch hunt. However serious, dramatic and delicate the topic of discussion is.
What about you?
I know the topic is super serious. When writing this blog post, at several stages I felt the need to turn this into a more positive 'story. But this topic didn't leave me any room to do so. Do you see the newest cancelling culture around you? Do you know cases that touch your heart in which people are put into the camp of the wrong without adversarial debate? What do you think about leading artists that stay away from politics? Do you think silence is wrong? Do you think musicians shall use their powers on political topics?
