There’s little room for acceptance of offenders in the era of #MeToo and general sexual harassment and assault awareness. However, that hasn’t stopped massive music festival and conference Amsterdam Dance Event from removing a label head and DJ who made sexist remarks last year. ADE has even defied a petition asking for the DJ’s removal.
First, some context: last year, Konstantin, co-founder of record label Giegling and a DJ himself, made sexist remarks in an interview. Konstantin said he thought female DJs were worse than male DJs and didn’t understand why they were being promoted. The remarks upset a lot of artists, male and female alike.
Flash forward to ADE this year, and Konstantin pops up on two events during the event. Many artists took offense to this, and a petition was launched calling for ADE to remove Konstantin from the event entirely. The petition garnered more than 700 co-signers, including The Black Madonna, the DISCWOMAN collective, Shanti Celeste, Amsterdam’s night mayor, the head of record label Lobster Theremin and more.
However, ADE has decided not to drop Konstantin from the event. Resident Advisor reports ADE gave the publication the below statement:
“Of course we have seen the petition, we agree this is an important topic to address. Probably we will ask Konstantin to attend a panel and discuss this topic. Amsterdam Dance Event is the perfect place, and the awareness about this is becoming bigger and bigger in the music industry. We also work together with She Said So, the global network of women who work in the music industry.”
It seems very old-school and outdated for ADE to take such a position, and we’re very curious to see what potential backlash comes from their refusal to drop Konstantin.
