DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs list was revealed this past weekend, including a diverse range of producers including Peggy Gou, Black Coffee, Carl Cox, Charlotte De Witte, Alison Wonderland, KSHMR, Deorro, Carta, and more. While it’s great to see so many different names on the list this year, German DJ SKEE MASK, who is white, and has never been on the Top 100, has called out the publication for its “incredibly racist top 100 white djs shit.”
The response came after DJ Mag reported on a new EP from SKEE MASK coming out on the label Ilian Tape.
“please don’t mention my name anymore until you quit this incredibly racist top 100 white djs shit…,” he wrote, “even if some stupid people voted instead of your staff you can’t be serious about this!!!!”
yo @DJmag please don't mention my name anymore until you quit this incredibly racist top 100 white djs shit… even if some stupid people voted instead of your staff you can't be serious about this!!!! https://t.co/Opup2gkQGL
— SKEE MASK (@sk33mask) October 22, 2019
For reference, all of the DJs I mentioned in the first paragraph are either women or people of color. Not mentioned in the paragraph but still on the list are Carl Nunes, Diego Miranda, Alok, and Afrojack.
Calling a list racist that is governed by the votes people submit is seeing the problem but missing the target. Dance music, and indeed many areas of life, suffer from some degree of institutionalized racism. And it’s not wrong of SKEE MASK to want to improve things. But what can DJ Mag do? If they manually deny certain DJs placement on the list because of the color of their skin, isn’t that just as bad?
Photo via Planet Rose
