Attacking Artists Is Easy, but Attacking Industry Norms Might Actually Make a Difference
A three-part proposal to increase the effectiveness of boycott movements within electronic music.
Two weeks ago, I published an essay entitled, “Dance Music Has a Scab Problem.”
If you missed it, or can’t remember what it was all about, here’s a quick summary:
With outrage growing over the ongoing genocide in Gaza, a boycott movement has taken root in dance music, with a particular focus on events affiliated with private equity giant KKR, an American firm with documented ties to fossil fuel extraction, weapons manufacturing, crowd-control technology and businesses that operate in the occupied West Bank.1
Those boycotts, many of them enacted with the support of the Palestinian-led BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement—have grabbed numerous headlines and prompted dozens, if not hundreds, of artists to remove themselves from the line-ups of KKR-affiliated events like Field Day, Sónar and Boiler Room, even as many of those same events have rushed to release public statements “distancing themselves” from their owners.2
Despite all of the negative attention the boycotts have brought to KKR-affiliated events, the promoters of those events have had little trouble finding artists willing to replace their colleagues who’d dropped out on moral grounds.
To date, artists engaging in this sort of scab behavior—that is, actively choosing to undercut their peers in defiance of an active boycott—have experienced almost zero public pushback, let alone professional consequences. They’re continuing to appear on line-ups, promote their upcoming releases and secure press coverage, and people within the industry don’t seem particularly interested in holding them to account.
Social media has long been the primary driver of the boycott conversation, and for better or worse, it’s one of the only places where some people are still attempting to impose some level of accountability. There’s something encouraging about that, but given the tendency of social media discourse to devolve into mean-spirited callouts and lawless pile-ons, not to mention the fact that the boycott conversation is largely dominated by anonymously run Instagram accounts,3 it’s hard to have much faith in a just result.
Long story short, a growing number of artists are actively flouting a widely publicized boycott, and as long as people in the industry—who in many cases are enabling and / or profiting from these artists—refuse to create any consequences for those that remain on KKR-affiliated line-ups, this scab behavior is bound to continue.
A quick aside:
Say what you will about the people who’ve played KKR-affiliated events in 2025, but at least some of them can plausibly claim that when they first accepted those bookings, they weren’t even aware of the firm’s existence, let alone its unsavory history and business dealings. It wasn’t until May that the boycott conversation really exploded online, and by that time, some artists had already arranged entire tours around a specific KKR-affiliated gig; without that gig as an anchor date, their planned tours would have in some cases no longer been financially / logistically feasible.
Now, do those kinds of excuses justify these artists’ decision to go ahead and play? It depends who you ask, but what’s far more clear is that anyone who agrees to perform at a KKR-affiliated event in 2026 will be doing so with their eyes wide open. With major festivals primed to start unveiling their 2026 line-ups in October—the announcements come earlier and earlier every year—it’s about to become painfully obvious which artists have decided that disregarding, or flat-out undermining, an active boycott just isn’t that big of a deal.
So what’s to be done?
Following the publication of my initial “Scab Problem” essay, I received a number of messages, some of them from people were downright incensed by my lack of enthusiasm for publicly calling out individual artists. In the face of the ghastly horrors unfolding in Gaza, many activists feel justified in adopting a no-holds-barred approach, regardless of whether or not it’s totally fair to the artists being strung up online. I can understand that perspective, and in many cases, I share their disgust with the seeming indifference and hypocrisy of the electronic music realm. Speaking out against that feels righteous, and in a world where most people have very little power to significantly push back against the systemic forces carving up the planet and unilaterally reshaping the terms of human existence, taking one’s anger and disappointment to social media—as flawed as that medium may be—can also feel like reclaiming some level of agency.
Here’s the problem: Regardless of whether calling individuals out on social media is justified, it hasn’t proven to be a particularly effective strategy, particularly when it comes to winning people over. When online activists talk about “fostering dialogue” and “compassionately” engaging with artists who refuse to join boycott movements, I often wonder what sort of fantasyland they’re living in. Are they using the same internet that I am? The one where performative bullying is juiced by the algorithm, and no apology is ever deemed sufficient? Being subjected to a sudden torrent of online abuse might ruin someone’s day, or maybe even their week, but how often is it going to prompt them to genuinely re-evaluate their behavior? It doesn’t help matters that the internet has a comically short attention span; unless a person who’s being called out is guilty of something truly heinous (e.g. assaulting or directly harming someone), whatever firestorm swells up around them is bound to be fleeting. When even someone who’s getting absolutely savaged online can usually just lay low, stay quiet and wait for the storm to pass, there’s most likely not a whole lot of learning and reflecting going on.
Attacking artists is easy, but instigating real change demands a more systemic approach. When it comes to defying boycotts, artists might be the most visible offenders, but they’re backed by an entire network of enablers, all of whom have decided to look the other way. Online callouts might briefly disrupt that network, but getting the industry to actually change its working methods and adopt more ethical business practices requires something stronger: namely, the creation of tangible consequences for those who continue to undercut their peers.
In that spirit, I’d like to suggest three specific proposals:
Individual booking agencies and management companies should publicly refuse to work with any event that’s affiliated with KKR.
Managers and booking agents aren’t known for speaking up—when asked, many will say that their job is to facilitate and serve the needs of their artists—but they wield enormous power within the industry. And yet, they’ve been virtually silent when it comes to boycotts, allowing their artists to take all the heat while they themselves patiently (and rather conveniently) loom in the background, quietly collecting their 15%. Why is this acceptable? Artists might get all the glory, but more often than not, managers and booking agents are the ones with the connections and the relationships. More importantly, they’re the ones whose rosters frequently include dozens of DJs and musicians.
In other words, these people have real leverage, and it would make a pretty meaningful statement if some of them came out and publicly announced that their entire slate of artists was now off limits to all KKR-affiliated events. Doing so might result in some sort of financial hit, but booking and management is a volume business, and as such, these firms are in many cases far better positioned to stick their necks out than the clients they represent. Would some of those clients still object to such a move? Quite possibly, but if an artist is truly that determined to perform at events with documented financial ties to military tech and some of the most noxious corporations on the planet, perhaps their representatives should reconsider whether that person is someone they really want to be doing business with. Booking and management rosters are always in flux to begin with, so why not let the boycott flaunters go and make room for someone else who’s interested in working with a more ethical operation?
Media outlets should publicly refuse to do business with or provide promotional editorial coverage of KKR-affiliated events.
On its About page, Resident Advisor literally touts its “commitment to being a force for good and advocating for a more inclusive and equitable electronic music community.” It’s not alone. In recent years, electronic music media outlets across the board have made a big show of their progressive politics, loudly advocating for diversity and sustainability while also dotting their editorial with the occasional frowny-faced story about the vagaries of the streaming economy or the difficulties faced by working-class artists.
But are these places willing to put their money where their mouth is? Considering that RA, Crack, Dazed, Mixmag, DJ Mag and The Face all recently joined forces to publicly support Brian Eno’s upcoming Together for Palestine concert at Wembley Stadium in London, refusing to work with KKR-affiliated events should be a no-brainer. What would that mean in practice? No ticket sales, no partnerships, no advertising, no sponsored content, no reviews and no more “news” stories that do little more than share the latest additions to the line-up. Doing so might put a little dent in their engagement metrics, not to mention their financial ledgers, but it would also call into question the legitimacy of all KKR-affiliated events, sending a clear message that at least within the confines of forward-thinking electronic music, certain funding sources are not just distasteful, but utterly disqualifying.
Club and festival promoters should publicly state that they will not book any artist who refuses to comply with the KKR boycott.
This is the big one. Surely there are lots of promoters out there who are appalled by the entrance of a firm like KKR into the culture, but looking at their upcoming line-ups, it seems that nobody is appalled enough to cut ties with artists who’ve refused to honor the boycott. Fear likely has a lot to do with that, as promoters—who in general go to great lengths to be known as “artist friendly”—might worry that taking that sort of stand might harm their reputation, or limit the pool of artists they could book for future events. But the truth is that promoters, not artists, are often the ones with most of the power, especially in the oversaturated world of electronic music. For most DJs and musicians, live gigs are one of the only reliable income streams, and if choosing to play a KKR-affiliated event means that other potential bookings are immediately going to be off the table, many of them are going to at the very least think twice before taking that gig.
Much like media outlets, promoters have bent over backwards in recent years to present their events as bastions of diversity, freedom and community. When it comes to programming, they already have no qualms about excluding artists who are racist, sexist, homophobic or bigoted in any way—in fact, their contracts frequently contain language that specifically prohibits the espousal of such viewpoints—and yet, their moral rubric doesn’t extend to someone’s willingness to honor a boycott, even one tied to an ongoing genocide. That’s downright nonsensical, and considering the substantial leverage that many promoters—and especially festival promoters—hold, it also represents an abdication of moral responsibility. If taking a stand means that certain artists are no longer eligible to play your event, so be it; why not book someone else whose values better align with your own?
Some promoters might still be hesitant, thinking that a blanket refusal to book artists who’ve played at KKR-affiliated events would represent a kind of retroactive punishment. After all, if artist chose to play at Sónar or Boiler Room this year, they had no warning that doing so would explicitly eliminate them from consideration for certain other gigs. That’s a fair point, albeit one that can be resolved with a simple workaround: When promoters make their public statement refusing to book artists who perform at KKR-affiliated events, they can add a clause that says “from this day forward,” or set some other arbitrary deadline. The idea isn’t to penalize artists for infractions they didn’t know they were committing; it’s to draw a clear line in the sand, one that prompts musicians to really think about which gigs are truly worth taking.
The proposals I’ve outlined are all focused on the current boycott of KKR-affiliated events, but that’s really just a starting point. If someone wanted to take a public stance in opposition to some other nefarious entity, that’s their prerogative, and in the wake of the recent announcement that Spotify CEO Daniel Ek would be leading a €600 million funding round for an AI military tech firm, the world’s largest streaming platform certainly seems like a more than worthy target. Although cutting ties with any artist that simply has their music on Spotify is probably unworkable, there’s nothing stopping media outlets from publicly repudiating the platform, or promoters from refusing to book musicians who’d performed at one of the company’s official events.
Want to change Spotify to Amazon? That works too. There are no hard and fast rules, and regardless of what a real-world application of these proposals might ultimately look like, the underlying goal remains the same. It’s about normalizing the consideration of ethics as part of the music industry’s decision-making process, particularly within those sectors of the industry that strive to maintain some level of independence from the cultural mainstream. Giant corporations and their dirty money may be flowing into even the most niche corners of music, but accepting that money is still a choice, one that should come with well-defined consequences. Surrendering to the forces of capital and commodification doesn’t have to be a foregone conclusion, and whether someone is an artist, a magazine editor or a large-scale festival promoter, it’s okay to draw red lines and say, “Within my particular corner of the culture, this behavior will not be tolerated.”
Personally speaking, I can think of few business practices less deserving of tolerance than choosing to ignore a boycott and stab your peers in the back. Screeching on social media about artists who do that sort of thing might make me feel better, at least for a few minutes, but I’d rather advocate for an industry in which that behavior has been rendered both socially and financially unpalatable.
Shawn Reynaldo is a freelance writer, editor, presenter and project manager. Find him on LinkedIn and Instagram—and make sure to follow First Floor on Instagram as well—or you can just drop Shawn an email to get in touch about projects, collaborations or potential work opportunities.
For the uninitiated, KKR—which literally counts retired US general and former CIA chief David Petraeus as a partner and the chairman of both its Global Institute and Middle East division—in 2024 acquired Superstruct, a UK festival conglomerate with a portfolio that includes approximately 80 large-scale festivals (e.g. Sónar, Field Day, Awakenings, DGTL and Flow) and 200 smaller events around the globe. This past January, Superstruct also purchased Boiler Room, arguably the world’s most prominent streaming platform for dance music and DJ culture.
Boiler Room was actually the first Superstruct-owned entity to publicly distance itself from KKR and promise to adhere to BDS and PACBI (Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel) guidelines. This move was officially welcomed by PACBI and was also reportedly done in direct defiance of Boiler Room’s bosses.
In fairness to the people running those accounts, they’d likely claim that their anonymity is a protective measure, one adopted in the face of aggressive efforts by pro-Israel groups to doxx and harass Palestine supporters.