Nina Las Vegas is tired of fighting a one-woman war. She’s by no means done battling, but she just wishes she had some brothers and sisters in arms to join her in the fray. “I hate that it takes you screaming to say that you are doing cool stuff for women in EDM,” she tells C-Heads.
“Generally, there needs to be awareness of cool shit already happening to change the overall perception. People at Pitchfork and blogs have a lot of pull, so they just need help create a ‘positive’ hype.” The electronic world in particular has a long way to go before women are equally represented.
As Digital Music News reports, during a presentation by Nielsen’s VP of Branded Music, Tatiana Simonian, at EDMbiz, it was revealed that while 45 percent of EDM fans are female, female DJs make up less than six percent of the bill in top North American EDM festivals.
“There needs to be more confidence and trust. People need to take risks and give more spots to women. Agents and promoters need to be bold and not make a big deal – if a support slot is going to someone with tiny following, then give it to a girl,” Las Vegas insists.
As a staple of national youth broadcaster Triple J for years and one of the country’s most in-demand DJs, male or female, Las Vegas knows what she’s talking about. As far as she’s concerned, the time is now for the industry to start throwing its support behind female EDM artists.
“America definitely needs more women – there’s a celebrity status for Skrillex and Diplo, you know… if there is a female version, more people will look up to that. Hopefully Allison Wonderland will inspire a bunch of girls to make music,” she says.
“She’s currently pulling more people than any male right now. I don’t even know any international acts that can sell as many tickets as she can right now – this is her moment.” Indeed, in addition to growing exposure overseas, Wonderland has sold out back to back tours in Australia.
But Las Vegas says there’s plenty of future Alison Wonderlands out there just waiting for their tipping point moment. “There’s a young writer and music curator from Brisbane – Kristy Barker who writes one of the best music blogs,” Las Vegas explains.
“I would also love to see what young Mark Johns does. Catlips from the Pilerats crew in Perth is on fire right now, also in Perth is Tina Says. I’m all about Nidia Minaj too… Not forgetting to mention all the usual impressive producers like Anna Lunoe, Louisahhh!, Ikonika, UNIIQU3, Jubilee, Asma from Nguzunguzu… the list goes on.”
The model Las Vegas is proposing, one of support, risk-taking, and exposure, works. She cites the success of Phoenix DJ Mija as an example. “Skrillex loves her, she needs to be seen. He should do that to five more women.”
“It’s so hard in Australia – it’s hard to be female/singer/songwriter,” Las Vegas adds. “Major labels here don’t have money like Beyonce money. It’s super hard to be underground too. Look at Maya Jane Cole – she had a sample in the Nicki album.”
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“I want to see Nicole Miller here in Australia to put out something cool, I want to see Elizabeth Rose smash it with her LP, Zuri (Akoko)… can’t wait to see original material… And obviously there’s Tkay [Maidza] and George Maple makes a lot of her own beats too so it be great to see her nail it.”
As for the males Las Vegas has been keeping her eye on, she’s a big fan of Swick, with whom she’s produced several well-received tracks. “He’s doing an EP right now – he has such an interesting sound,” says Las Vegas. “The song Flume recently put out, it’s so cool, I love the end part.”
“I’m excited about Hudmo’s new album, I love the nostalgia in Jamie xx’s record, I love the Rytmeklubben gang,” she continues. “New S-Type in the works, new Joseph Marinetti. There’s also CZ – from LA.”
Of course, there’s also her own burgeoning production career to worry about. “Before this last year, I had remixes of my own out and was making more bootlegs and uploading them to SoundCloud,” Las Vegas recounts.
“I was conscious I needed to spend more time in the studio to get better, which is why I stopped working on triple j’s House Party show.” Las Vegas is currently continuing her collaboration with Swick and she’ll keep fighting the good fight until something changes.
