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DJ Mag Top100 DJs
60
Nina Kraviz
37
Since starting her record label трип five years ago, megastar Russian DJ and producer Nina Kraviz has grown into the role of curator. A somewhat solitary figure in her early years – touring relentlessly and championing the harder, stranger elements of techno, acid, gabber, trance, and ghettotech – she stuck out in a landscape of big-banner artists who played predictable 4/4 beats, funk-less and bleak. Without a clear community surrounding her, she created her own with трип, finding new, mostly Russian artists, and bringing once-lost rave music back into the conversation.
 
Guided by texture rather than era or genre, her sound has become more adventurous – from her avant-garde audio-visual performance at Coachella 2019, to her own releases, with tough-yet-elastic grooves and kicks that detonate on impact. As a DJ, she’s played on the Great Wall of China, at dozens of major global festival headline slots, and for her own трип parties, in an Icelandic cave and a Californian aerospace museum. In 2019, Kraviz has out-gunned and out-styled most on her level, becoming a true techno icon.
 
 
Fave tune of 2019:
"Vladimir Dubyshkin 'Rural Woman'."
 
Breakthrough DJ/producer of 2019:
 
"Vladimir Dubyshkin/Texstasy."
 
What more can we do to combat the mental health crisis in our scene?
 
"Avoid social media as much as we can."
 
Are you personally doing anything to improve the gender balance of line-ups?
 
"This is something you’ll know better."
 
What was your favourite toy when you were a kid?
 
"I was not into toys."
 
What’s your guilty pleasure?
 
"Cakes."