“I want Ukrainian music to be Shazamed” Female DJs in wartime

Ukrainian article of the week published in the 38th edition of the "What about Ukraine" newsletter on July 18th, 2024. The article was written by Olha Dudenko for Wonderzine and was translated for n-ost by Tetiana Evloeva. Read the original article here.

“Recently I had to make a playlist for a funeral procession. That was my first”

After the full-scale invasion, many professions became an opportunity to support the Ukrainian army and spread the word about Ukrainian culture. This includes DJing, an occupation that offers opportunities to create safe spaces for “your crowd” in Ukraine, and spread updates on the war, when playing in Ukraine, and giving foreigners an incentive to help the Ukrainian army when playing abroad.

Ana B, a female DJ, is known for burning Putin’s portrait on air at a Berlin radio station. Having spent 12 years living in New York, she moved back to Ukraine to play sets close to home, raising funds through donations. Daria Kolomiiets played a vinyl record of Ukrainian track ‘Vodohrai’ at a festival in Barcelona, and foreigners in attendance liked the track so much that they Shazamed it from the mosh pit.

We met two female DJs, Daria Kolomiiets and Anastasia Bobrovska, to talk about how their work has been affected by war, and how modern Ukrainian music can spread the messages of Ukrainian culture and info on the war, and counteract the influence of Russia’s broadcasting.

“When I slip my record of [Ukrainian singer-songwriter] Volodymyr Ivasiuk out of its sleeve, I make a point of sharing his story of being killed by the KGB.”

The full-scale invasion changed my work dramatically. I came to use my skills to act as an ambassador for Ukraine, promoting Ukrainian culture and raising funds for the Defence Forces. As of now, I consider myself a cultural activist, because what I’m doing is sharing Ukrainian culture, through DJing in particular.

Before, apart from DJing, I used to make podcasts about music. During COVID, I’d downloaded the mobile app MUSICURES, which I used to livestream, and I went live 127 times. I later released those recordings as a podcast. I was keen on sharing new tracks through DJing. In 2014, that app was used for Ukrainian songs only. When I play my sets, I view this as my form of protest. As of today, I only play Ukrainian music, for I want people to get to know it, to Shazam those tracks and add them to their playlists.

I’m one of those female DJs who frequently talk to their audience during the set. When performing, I have flags with messages like “Russia is a terrorist state” or “War is not over, stand with Ukraine”, and they are a means of communicating this war that Russia has foisted upon us. I know that it isn’t purely classical DJing on my part, as people coming to my sets specifically expect to listen to my music. Still, I sometimes punctuate what I’m doing with my comments. Like, for instance, when I take my record of [Ukrainian singer] Volodymyr Ivasiuk [who was found dead at 30 years old hanging from a tree outside Lviv] out of its sleeve, I make a point of sharing his story of being killed by the KGB.

Diary of WAR

As a television journalist by training, I have extensive experience working both in front of the camera and behind the scenes. In the first weeks of the invasion, I launched my podcast from a bomb shelter in Kyiv, where I documented the early days of the war from Ukrainians’ perspective, sharing my episodes via voice messages. As I managed to scrape 41 voice recordings, I put them together into the Diary of WAR podcast. Back then, I didn’t give much thought to what would become of that project, I just relied on my skills and did what my intuition deemed necessary. When I uploaded those stories to YouTube, it dawned on me that those were powerful messages and it was important that foreigners could listen to them.

Through social media, I mustered volunteers from all over the globe, who helped me translate those voice recordings into English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, French and many other languages. We added all those subtitles on YouTube, and half a year after the full-scale invasion, I started presenting all those stories in New York.

“Diary of WAR originated from the voice recordings I made while hiding in a coffee shop’s bomb shelter in the heart of Kyiv.”

In February 2022, I didn’t think of myself as a creator or artist. To me, those activities faded away. My team and I were clueless about what would become of us. We were just surviving, along with those close to us, and to keep on living was the first and foremost thing we all wished for. Diary of WAR originated from the voice recordings that I made while hiding in a coffee shop’s bomb shelter in the heart of Kyiv. It was quite crowded, and I took notice of how everyone reacted to the situation differently.

So I started recording fifteen minute sessions of talking into my phone when no one could interrupt me. That alone made me feel a little better. Later, I called Jamala and Nina Harenetska from the DahaBrakha band — all those people from my social circle who were living through the same experiences, and could offer their input. They sent me their voicemails, and with time, there were more and more of those recordings. Then came the moment when I thought: “Oh my, and what about the people with impaired hearing? How did they find out that a war broke out?” So I began to look for first-hand experiences from those people.

When the tragedy of Mariupol unfolded, I did my best to get in touch with people who managed to flee the city. That way, I started accumulating more and more first-hand experiences, and that’s what kept me going during those early months of the full-scale invasion. Despite these ongoing activities, I had no plan and no clue how I would use that material.

“I thought that music was dead to me”

I used to play specific soundtracks for my mornings, lunches, hangovers and coffee breaks, yet in the first three months of the full-scale invasion, I gave up listening to music. I thought that music was dead to me, and that was a world-shattering loss. Overall, music is a huge part of my identity, so my mother, for instance, was hurt to see me like that, because she knew music had been my life. Back then, I couldn’t listen to any music; it was like my ears existed for the sole purpose of detecting danger by sound.

So I decided to change my work. On my app where I used to share music from all over the globe, highlighting new, vibrant, unheralded and exotic pieces, I uploaded all the Ukrainian tracks I had in my possession and started sharing them with the world.

Spreading the word through music

My first and foremost mission is to keep reminding the world about Russia’s war on Ukraine, calling things out for what they are. To me, it’s not just about waving our national flag during my set, I have to articulate things like “Russian war in Ukraine” and “Russian genocide in Ukraine”. It’s worth a lot to me that people leave my sets with Ukrainian music they Shazamed while I was playing.

Since the summer of 2022, I have been on five trips to New York as a volunteer with my personal cultural mission: to promote Ukrainian culture and spread the truth about Russia’s war on Ukraine as a countermeasure to Russian propaganda. When I’m abroad, my actions are tailored to foreigners as my target audience, I specifically choose places and establishments frequented by Americans. I want other nations to learn about Ukrainian culture.

My first experience of playing an entire set using just Ukrainian tracks, as a cultural mission, was about six months into the full-scale invasion. I was in a New York club where the line-up included DJs from the UK and the US, and I was to play as a warm-up. It was clear as day that I could be stopped just two songs in, as my set was a curiosity, but I didn’t care, as my goal was to use the hour or two to spread awareness about our ongoing war, about the songs and tracks that we, the Ukrainians, had, and about how Ukrainian artists had always been persecuted by Russia their entire lives, yet they would always be committed to their art.

I intentionally promote music by people who are in the army now, or who write their pieces to the soundtrack of air-raid sirens. Take the Dnipropop label, for instance: many of their artists are now serving in the Defence Forces. I also use old records by artists killed by Russia, thus building an entire story of genre and personalities so that foreigners can experience the multiformity of Ukrainian music.

Americans dancing to ‘Vodohrai’.

When I started playing a funky adaptation of ‘Oy Marichko, Chycheri’ [originally a Ukrainian folk song, — translator’s note], it was very popular with African Americans, who approached me after my sets saying: “Oh my god! This is so cool!” and asking about the song. They tried to Shazam the track, but the app said it was a Ukrainian track from the 1970s — in Ukrainian. So they asked me to help them find that track on streaming services, as they didn’t have a Ukrainian keyboard. To me, feedback like that is just wow!

Since the outbreak of the full-scale war, I also played sets at festivals, like La Mercè in Barcelona and Eurosonic in the Netherlands. Also, I had the opportunity to make a presentation at two panel discussions, so I joined forces with music experts to discuss Ukrainian funk of the 1970s, as well as the phenomenon of Ukrainian classic song ‘Chervona Kalyna’ and ‘Schedryk’ [better known in the West as ‘Carol of the Bells’, — translator’s note]. For my second panel discussion, I was asked to share my first-hand experience of the war and my current cultural activities.

I’m not into people-pleasing. Classical DJing entails creating fun. Well, I don’t do that. On the contrary, I sometimes even make them hurt, as the issues I raise are painful and unpleasant. The audience might think: “Yeah, they are being killed, but that’s so far away! I’m partying here, and I don’t want to see all that.” I am a consistent advocate for Ukraine, in everything I do. For instance, when writing articles for Time magazine or The New York Times, I always make sure to mention the Ukrainian musicians who were wronged by Russia.

“We still dance because the Ukrainian people are resilient and unbreakable”

I do my best to bring old vinyls to my sets. Old vinyls are difficult to play, especially in open spaces, as the needle may slip, but to me, that doesn’t matter. I recall how at some point during my set at La Mercè festival I played the vinyl of the song ‘Vodohrai’. The stage was built in the middle of a huge park, and I told my audience that in Ukraine, we have a tradition of ring dancing. People were confused, and I… well, I wasn’t planning to play that song in the first place! It’s just that at some point I had that feeling that I had to play that song.

Back then, my friend Maryna came to Barcelona to see my show, and I called out to her: “Maryna, show them how it’s done!” And so they started ring dancing to ‘Vodohrai’, and I was jumping up and down on the big stage. Before that, my set included songs by Anastasia Shevchenko, a Ukrainian songstress and servicewoman who performs under the alias of STASIK, including her song ‘Heroii Vmyraiut’ [Ukr. ‘Heroes Do Die’, — translator’s note]. It is, of course, to be understood that every one of my sets is about what we are going through, that I use them as media to convey what’s happening in Ukraine, and that heroes do die, that people (including musicians) are joining the Army, that air raid sirens are blaring, that there’s always an imminent danger — yet we still dance because the Ukrainian people are resilient and unbreakable. I try to show the foreigners all that vibe, yet end my set on a high note.

Our mosh pit turned into an enormous rave to ‘Vodohrai’. After that, people began messaging me on Instagram, like: “I brought my friend from Brazil, and when he saw that ring-dancing, that mosh pit, he teared up, as it was so indicative of your people and how you unite in the face of hardship.” The audience got that — they understood what I had prepared for them.

So in my sets, I’m not trying to escape reality, I’m not trying to substitute my reality with something different. I do understand some people may find such an unusual format unsettling and leave, as all they want is some rave. Still, some share how they cried during the set, and how their heart aches for Ukraine.

Music is never about just having fun

How my sets are shaped depends on when and where I play them. Every new day brings new experiences. My other projects are mainly dedicated to sharing the stories of people with some connection to the frontline, and their situation is ever changing. A month ago, I teamed up with Bedlam Theatre and American actress Zuzanna Szadkowski and made a performance based on ‘Diary of WAR’. For the first time in history, I guess, American veterans were delivering 14 stories based on first-hand experiences of real Ukrainians. We intended to pair the event with a fundraiser for Ukrainian volunteer medical batallion The Hospitallers, so we planned to open the readings with the diary of Iryna Tsybukh, my friend and a military medic. Three days before the readings, Iryna was killed on the Kharkiv front, during rotation, so we dedicated the event to her memory.

The same goes for the tracks in my sets: you can’t just play the same old playlist everywhere and every time, because the war goes on. As we are playing some tracks, we never know the fate of its creator. In my lifetime, I probably made thousands of playlists — for radio stations, fashion shows, movie premieres and people’s weddings. Recently I had to make a playlist for a funeral procession in Iryna’s honour; that was my first.

I have a group chat called UkrVechirky [UkrParties] that my friends and I created during the full-scale invasion. We use it to facilitate our get-togethers in Kyiv, where we can sing, see one another, cooperate and learn something new. In several of those get-togethers, Iryna sang along with the rest of us — yet here I am, making a playlist for her funeral. This story is indicative of the role of music in this full-scale war.

Speaking about DJing, for instance — from an artist’s perspective, that’s also a platform where they share information. Music is never about just having fun, nor is it beyond politics. Music is an invisible magic force that we are unable to touch, capable of uniting us and letting us mourn together, or discover something new. Artists are privileged to share all those stories by creating their own music or sharing their favourite tracks.

Two and a half years ago, I would say that my support network consisted of people, hugs and music. Today, as sad as it may be, the sensitivity has faded due to the immense pain that we’re experiencing, so now music helps me cope with an accumulation of rage and wrath. I often struggle to express those feelings when I’m working in New York, for in Ukraine, you meet your friends who are on the same page as you, and no explanations are required. In the US, I don’t have that safety net, because out of the blue, I can be asked: “What, the war isn’t over yet?”, and it takes all my self-restraint to explain the current situation diplomatically.

“The only effective countermeasure is promoting our culture, regardless of what the Russians have to say”

“Releasing Ukrainian music has always been a challenge”

In 2022, I was planning to release my new album of electronic music and even played my first live show. My plans were all about music. Then the full-scale invasion began, and that matter fell way down my priority list. Instead, I started documenting people’s experiences of the invasion and came to the realisation of the importance of touring and sharing Ukrainian culture. To this very day, two and a half years after the full-scale invasion began, I have yet to find time and space to sit down and write music, and something I can later release. That’s yet another thing that Russia has stolen from me.

Still, I managed to write an outro for the play ‘Radio 477’ in New York. That was a play staged by The Berezil Theatre, about Ukrainian jazz of the 1920s, written by Serhiy Zhadan and directed by Virliana Tkach. So I wrote the outro for that play. This is also about the relevance of music, as I also want my work and all the projects I’m involved in to clearly depict that this war didn’t start two years ago, or ten years ago — it broke out a century ago.

By playing a record by Volodymyr Ivasiuk, alongside modern Ukrainian music, I make sure to emphasise that releasing Ukrainian Music has always been a challenge. I invite people to listen, to dance, to shed some tears, and to twist around. I want my audience to always leave my sets with the impression: “Oh my God, you guys are so cool!”

Making smalltalk with foreigners ceased to work for me. At, however, is a great medium for reminding people that there’s an ongoing war that we keep fighting and that our culture is so cool. Russians abroad are given plenty of space to voice their opinions, they haven’t been cancelled, and have the privilege to keep creating their art. That’s why we have to keep creating our art, keep releasing it and trumpet it, and we have to do tours. The only effective countermeasure is promoting our culture, regardless of what the Russians have to say.

We know how integral and diverse our culture is. It’s up to us to dispel the stereotypes and play modern renditions of the old songs so that the Americans can fall for them, and have a stroke of insight through them.

Many people started asking “What is she: a DJ or an activist?”

In the early days of the full-scale war, I had zero plans — which I guess is true for the majority of Ukrainians. My career as a DJ was out of the question. I have spent the past 12 years of my life living in New York, and that’s where the news of the invasion reached me. However, my entire family was in Kyiv. To me, that was a daunting time. Back then, the matter of music being political wasn’t as acute, so any attempt to start a conversation about our war was never taken seriously. I was repeatedly told the mantra that “music is beyond politics”.

So my first and foremost activity was fundraising. I wanted to somehow help the Ukrainian army. Back then, Ukraine had only one website where one could support the Ukrainian military, and all the accounts were from Ukrainian banks. People started approaching me, wondering how they could send their money, so I started fundraising and sending that money over to trusted volunteers and military personnel.

“Music has always been political”

We used to raise quite significant sums, of USD 20,000 to 30,000 per week, and send this to Ukraine. Thus many people started asking about me: “What is she: a DJ or an activist”, so I had to get into multiple conversations on the political significance of music. For my performances, I brought QR codes that I had printed out, where one could donate money or learn about grassroots volunteer organisations in Kyiv. Many people failed to understand why I had to bring that stuff to the clubs, where folks were seeking to take their minds off any problems.

Music, namely techno, has always been political, so I encouraged people to do some digging into history and change their perspective. Later, I spoke on HÖR radio in Berlin, where I burned a portrait of Putin live, calling for the world to arm Ukraine for defence. It was a huge scandal, so HÖR ended up deleting the recording of that live show from their YouTube channel, supposedly due to my aggressive stance. They re-uploaded the video later.

Gradually, my perspective on what it means to be a Ukrainian in times of war shifted, and I moved back to Kyiv. While vacationing in Greece recently, my friend and I were introduced to a famous artist from Los Angeles, and she asked us where we were from. Our response “from Ukraine” seemed to dumbfound the lady, who then asked: “What, Ukraine is still populated?”, which reminded me why I moved back to Kyiv a few years earlier. To most of the West, Ukraine only exists in terms of supplying refugees, which, sadly, contributes to Russia’s plan to isolate Ukraine from the rest of the world. Therefore, to me, it’s important to not just communicate that Ukraine is still populated, but to be a living proof of someone who chose to return to the country. Moreover, I want to show that the music industry here is thriving and that I consider myself privileged to be part of it.

“I find it important to keep showing the world how people currently residing in Ukraine are building their new normal and fighting for their independence”

My moving to Kyiv is a reminder to all the people who follow me that I still live and work in my country, against all odds. As of now, there are many returnees to Ukraine, and those are the people who put a lot of effort into supporting their communities and their country. Thus, I find it important to keep showing the world how people currently residing in Ukraine are building their new normal and fighting for their independence, despite Russia’s continuous efforts to wipe us off the face of the earth. It inspires many people and changes their vision of the future.

Dancefloors have always been a platform for protest

I often join discussions on war, and keep sharing what is happening in Kyiv and other regions of Ukraine on social media. Of course, there’s plenty of negative feedback. What I find perplexing is that people keep asking those questions, like: is music even appropriate during a full-scale war, and whether we should have parties at all? This is not the most pleasant conversation to have, especially since most of the time, it’s initiated from abroad. “If you have raves like this, then I guess you’re doing just fine?” So I have to explain that life continues and that we do our best to create such safe spaces where people can come and get that feeling of being part of “their crowd”, of not being all alone in the time of despair.

We do our best to find our balance, besides, dancefloors have always been a kind of protest and activism. From time immemorial, music has always been a platform for marginalised groups of people to fight against the political and social injustices of their time.

Some might say that such events are “poorly timed”, yet clubs like Klub Na Kyrylivskii manage to raise UAH 200,000 – 300,000 [~EUR 4,500 – 6,700] worth of donations over just one weekend. Those funds are spent on supporting our military and, in particular, the musicians who are fighting in this war (and there are plenty of them).

The most rewarding part is being able to play my sets in Ukraine, and, having seen that energy and that audience, many will agree. Our parties are frequented by our friends in the military, and seeing their smiling faces makes me happy. This energy is unmatched by any of the best clubs in New York — or the world.

I feel privileged to be with my community here in Kyiv, my hometown, getting through this together through thick and thin.

Frankly, there are weeks, and sometimes months, when I can find no inspiration. The music feels bland and unimportant, and I feel like I’m falling into a pit of despair. In those moments, I always go to my friends at ABO (records), Brukxt, Community Cafe and other incredible places full of exceptionally talented artists, to get some inspiration and to re-emerge full of energy and verve. The Ukrainian music scene and the fabulous and powerful people in its circle became both my safe space and my power centre.

Photo credits: Helgi Palko (1), Iryna Kalamurza (3), Jonathan Florez (4), Pavlo Terekhov (6)