equality factor: empowered music lover and enrichment for electronic music
last release: "LIAR BIRD"
music heroins: Miss Kittin
based in: Moscow, Russia
With her current hit "LIAR BIRD", released in collaboration with Vlad Che on May 1, 2020, Agata currently tops the Beatport hype charts for house music. Her music is forward-thinking, and powerful, and stirs one thing above all in the minds of listeners: the desire to dance! We had the pleasure to talk with the charming Russian artist about several exciting topics, such as the club scene in Moscow, her love for music - and of course, equality empowerment.
Agata was born with a love for club music flowing through her veins: her parents were enthusiastic club-goers and music lovers themselves. For her, it was the most natural thing in the world to become a full-blown music enthusiast too. As a child, she learned to play the piano and the harp. Coming from a very patriarchal home, Agata now retrospectively considers herself a rebel. What was always welcome in her parental home was music and dance, and that was at the same time the most beautiful and respected form of rebellion.
She was just five years old when Agata's parents took her to a club for the first time. Even today she remembers her first impression of the fascinating environment very well: "I was just like wow! What is it? Where am I?" Speaking of love, at first, sight, would certainly not be an exaggeration. At the age of 15, she started going to clubs herself. "I needed to dance, to express myself through music, to feel these emotions. It's like a drug. When you feel this strength inside of you, you need more and more and more. It becomes a way of living." For the next ten years, it was impossible to imagine the dance floors of electronic music clubs in Moscow without her.
Reminiscing on the club scene and electronic music in Moscow, Agata describes it as mainly male-dominated. She thinks that this could be because women usually do not even think about getting a foothold in this scene. "If you are djing, it doesn't matter if you are a girl or a boy. If you are giving good music, you are cool.", she explains to us. In regard to empowerment, Agata speaks highly of her musical working environment, describing it as a big group of friends working in the same industry. "Musicians are music lovers first, so if they hear something that is close to them and they love, they invite to join the circle. I am not feeling a competition at all.", she elaborates
Before she devoted 100% of her life to her great love, music, Agata studied law. Besides her studies, she started to be part of movies and TV series, where she could celebrate small successes and was a radio and TV host - but eventually never worked as a lawyer. „I always needed to express myself somehow, that’s why I was searching, searching, and searching through acting, through TV hosting, but when it was weekend, I was on the dance floor. So one day I understood, that I don’t need to go anywhere from here, I need to stay.“, she says about her great passion for music.
Life can be magic!
The first impulse to take on the turntables herself was given to her by her friend Alexandra Zaytseva, to whom she is still very grateful. A few years ago, the two friends decided to go to Ibiza. Alexandra had firmly decided to - even without DJ experience - play there and convinced Agata of said plan. The two of them visited a DJ school in Moscow for 10 hours, found several like-minded people, and set off to the magic island with lots of music in their luggage. What Agata also had in her luggage was a controller, which she got from her esteemed friend Natasha Chernika. Natasha is a very important friend in Agata's life and the best example of how beautiful empowerment in music can be. She had lent her the controller for two years and thereby laid an important foundation stone in Agata's musical career.
In Ibiza, they knocked on the doors of the clubs and asked if they could play for free. In one of Agata's favorite clubs, the Nikki Beach, they were immediately allowed to play - and so the two music lovers played directly in one of the most established beach clubs of Ibiza. The visitors even danced to the music of the two girls, and so Agata's career as a DJ began. "It was like magic, and it showed me that you just have to believe and to show your skills, even if you are new and inexperienced in this world of music.", Agata reflects upon the beginning of this journey.
Another amazing anecdote of Agata's unusual music career is that of her and her musical partner Vlad Che. The two have known each other for 13 years. When they met, he worked at the legendary Krysha Mira nightclub, where they ran into each other many times. When Agata hosted a big fashion trade market in Moscow about two years ago, Vlad was responsible for musical entertainment. Right away, Agata was blown away by his work and showered him in compliments for every single one of the tracks he played. During the event, Vlad asked if she would like to play the beat-to-beat with him. That's how their artistic relationship started, again through a spontaneous leap of faith. Agata loves to play together with Vlad because, like this, she is not only giving music to the crowd but also getting to enjoy music herself, allowing her to delve into another one of her passions: dancing.
Asked for her definition of music, Agata answers: "Music is a very good friend to me. You can laugh with it, you can cry with it. It understands you very well, sometimes even better than you understand yourself." The first track Agata had on repeat and could not stop listening to was "I am hungry for the power" by Azari & III. As destiny would have it, she is now good friends with the singer, who lent the track his unique voice. A female electronic music artist that inspired Agata a lot is Miss Kittin. The French DJ, singer, and music producer has influenced Agata, especially by the fact that she has always built her own world and dares to go new ways.
"In modern families, it is more a partnership than leadership."
Talking to Agata about classical gender roles in Russia today, she explains that Russia is very traditional in this respect. But she observes more than just a power struggle between the sexes. In modern families, classic clichés can also be easily broken down, for example, by allowing both men and women to prepare meals together. Here she describes her personal circle of friends but adds that people who do not live in the big cities live with a much more traditional picture of gender roles. Agata also has a very interesting opinion on equality. In her mind, our own degree of empowerment is dependent on the role we give ourselves, and how equal we feel - and that is totally individual. She defines equality through the power balance when it comes to making decisions. In the USSR, that she was born into, it has always been completely normal for women to work. However, making important decisions was reserved for men, or rather women liked to orientate themselves according to the opinion of their husbands.
The dream she has been chasing since her childhood days is to travel around the world, discover new places, meet new people, and express new emotions through music. Before the Corona crisis, she had actually planned to move to Ibiza and to live there for a while, and just see what happens. "That's why I love music because you can communicate with it anywhere. You don't need to know Japanese, Korean, or Swahili to talk to people, you just need to have music."
"I don't know about the future, but I know I will have my music and it will make me happy."
Agata is currently planning two new releases with her friend Maria Zdrok, who once advised her when she wanted to stop producing music: "Music is simple, you just have to enjoy it. Stop stopping yourself!" The collaboration of the two powerful women is very international: Maria is currently in Sri Lanka and Agata is in Moscow. The first track is already finished, and at the moment the two artists are working together with labels that have asked for more music. More tracks are currently in the making.
