Kraviz, however, is still booked for many music festivals across Europe and North America this spring and summer. In May, the Rotterdam music company Clone Distribution cut ties with Kraviz’s label, Trip Recordings, “due to different views on ethical and moral matters.” And TIME collected responses from several prominent members of the electronic music scenes in Ukraine and Russia-including the Ukrainian DJ Nastia and the Russian DJ Buttechno-who criticized Kraviz’s silence and asked her publicly to clarify her ties to Putin and to refute the war. After the war began in February, she made one vague post about “peace” before falling silent on social media for months, which prompted the criticism of those who feel that she should use her platform as one of Russia’s foremost cultural exports. She has also, over the years, left a social media trail of support for Russian President Vladimir Putin. She sits close to the center of the global electronic music world, and was named Mixmag’s 2017 DJ of the Year. Kraviz is arguably the most famous Russian pop musician on a global scale: over the last decade, she’s built an ardent following with 1.8 million Instagram followers, performed on Coachella’s mainstage, and collaborated with the likes of Grimes and St. The latest artist at the center of this maelstrom is the Russian DJ Nina Kraviz. As debates rage, orchestra boards, festival directors, and venue bookers have been forced to make difficult decisions that serve as cultural proxy battles for a very real war. To others, however, they whiff of McCarthyist nationalism, or seem like performative stunts that target the wrong people.
To some, these cultural boycotts are acts of resistance and necessary deployments of soft power Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky even praised them as a worthwhile tactic. The Metropolitan Opera cut ties with one of its biggest stars, the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, while the Russian conductor Valery Gergiev was dropped from multiple performances in Europe and America. Eurovision banned Russian artists the Cannes Film Festival announced it would not welcome official Russian delegations.
Credit - Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for CoachellaĮver since the Russian army invaded Ukraine, a cultural boycott of Russian artists has spread across the West. Nina Kraviz performs at Coachella in 2019.