Nastia

Nastia, the Ukrainian DJ whose real name is Anastasia Topolskaia started her career in 2005. In a short time, she became a curator of KISS FM stage and a resident at the legendary Kazantip festival, she also hosted her weekly live radio show from 2006 to 2016 on the aforementioned radio station. In 2010, she was offered residency at Moscow’s cult Arma17 club. Inspired by the club’s team and their project, Nastia began to organize her own parties in Ukraine. After gaining experience and recognition, Nastia, together with the team of Closer, the famous club in Kyiv, created the Strichka festival in 2014, which runs to this day.

A year earlier she launched a vinyl label Propaganda Records, which quickly gained a strong presence in modern house music. Her career developed rapidly: she appeared on the covers of MixMag and DJ Mag magazines, recorded an Essential Mix and was a resident of BBC Radio 1, regularly spoke at many conferences such as ADE and the International Music Summit, frequently performed for Boiler Room and later made appearances on Berlin’s famous radio HOR. In 2019, Nastia concluded the Propaganda Records label as it no longer suited the directions where she was headed.

Whilst getting serious about techno music, Nastia created a new label – NECHTO. The name itself is an anagram of “ techno” and translates as “something else” from origin. During the pandemic, Nastia kept herself busy and became the first resident of the Beatport Residency project, where she presented the majority of Ukrainian producers and DJs, and released two seasons of her self-authored projects on YouTube. One of them is True Talk, where she interviewed Ukrainian colleagues, and the second is an audio-visual project Scary Beautiful, where Nastia played selected demo tracks sent by both young upcoming producers and well-known respected musicians. The sets were recorded in unique locations. After the project aired, Nastia released the music that she played on her label.

In 2020, Nastia teamed up with a large Ukrainian organization Qievdance that focuses on events. Together they launched NECHTO raves at various previously unused industrial locations. These massive events instantly became famous around the world as both the visual content and success of the brand accelerated.

In addition to house and techno, Nastia is a true fan of jungle and drum and bass music and has included these genres in her performances since 2007. She performed at dnb festivals such as SunAndBass, Hospitality and at the dnb stage “Booha” of the Romanian festival Electric Castle. In 2020, she interviewed Goldie for the print version of the British MixMag, and performed in this genre twice at MixMag Lab.
All these years, Nastia’s activities were aimed at popularizing Ukrainian culture and local artists, which made her the face of the Ukrainian electronic music scene on the global stage.

Nastia is a rare example of how great success can be achieved solely by DJing, ideas and hard work – so far she is the most touring and popular DJ in the history of Ukraine. She performs at key venues around the world and takes an active social and political positio. In 2022, due to the war in Ukraine, she temporarily moved to Amsterdam and actively supported Ukraine using all of her social instruments, and also opened her own fund to help Ukraine. Currently, she continues to actively perform and represent Ukraine at various dance, media and official platforms.