DJ and music producer Nina Agzarian, known professionally as Nina Las Vegas, lights up the night on stages – and airwaves! – with her high-energy sets and dazzling, playful presence. She’s worked in broadcast radio as a host and programmer, started her own recording label, NLV Records, toured the world with various music acts and is also one of the founders of Heaps Decent, an Australian organisation empowering diverse young people to express their creativity through music and multi-media.
DEAR NINA,
OK, so you’re 15 years old in the year 2000. New millennium! Sydney Olympics! A wild time!
Promise me you’ll take it all in, OK? It’s a really fun year! Look, I know it’s not that easy to be super positive about everything going on. Yes, everyone is going a little hyper Y2K, however, I know you feel there is a lot on your plate. School Certificate time is stressful.
You’re in Wagga Wagga, seeming so far away from everyone else doing cool stuff. Are you meant to be there? Or somewhere else? How do you leave? Can you leave? Are you missing opportunities? Are you taking the right subjects? Or too many? Constantly trying to work out what you should study, participate in, or focus on to ‘plan for the future’ is always in the back of your mind.
Soccer is fun, but training is annoying.
You love your friends, but you hate the idea of ‘groups’.
Boys seem to be cool one-on-one, but flip so fast on you when they’re with their mates (welcome to toxic masculinity sis, it’s a ‘thing’), and music is so amazingly fun, but how does that become a job?
I’m not gonna lie, it’s been a minute since we were 15 years old. I can’t quite remember all of it, but I do often reflect on how busy life was in rural New South Wales at that time. And how confusing that notion of doing ‘lots’ and liking ‘everything’ was. Let’s not forget, you’re pretty good at a lot of things, too. And don’t you dare shy away from that!
With all that in mind, I know what Year 10 is doing to you right now.
It’s making you think you have only one chance at everything. That you have to know what you want to do for the rest of your life and focus on it now. Pick the right senior subjects, select that one instrument to focus on, train as much as possible as you have the opportunity now to almost be in that selective soccer team… even make sure you’re at the right party with the cool girls.
But I can tell you right now, life doesn’t work like that. I don’t like when people say, ‘life is short’. It’s not! It’s so, so long. Think of how much you fit into your life from Year 5 to Year 10? So much, right? Think of all that, and times it by a million.
We’ve gone on to have a stack of wild jobs. We study design in Sydney, then sound engineering, then volunteer at FBi Radio, then land a job at triple j, get a national dance radio show, and then… Tour the world DJing (you play Coachella, baby!). We also start a record label!
Right now, we’re living, working and surviving being in the music industry during a global pandemic (honestly, let’s not go into it right now lol) and although it’s tough – we’re OK. We have done sooooo much since being 15 and loved every minute of it. Music becomes our job – a BIG one. It doesn’t force us to quit anything else we liked, because we find ways to intertwine it with what we love(d) doing. Art is needed to create music; sport keeps us healthy and energised to work so hard, and university taught us how to work with people.
There aren’t any rules for how creative people can live. Unfortunately, there are a few less women to look up to, but that’s OK. It gives you the chance to be a pioneer in your creative field.
If there was anything I would want to say to you, it is that it’s OK to say no to things that don’t make you happy. It’s pretty easy to get swept up in boring school dramas and expectations, especially in a country town, but don’t force anything if it doesn’t make you happy. True friends and true loves come to you (I promise) when you are 100 percent yourself. You’ll find that as you travel through cities, workplaces and on dancefloors. And guess what, you already know some of your lifelong friends – you’re in their drama and music class!
Anyway, take a deep breath, and enjoy the ride!
LOTS OF LOVE, 36-YEAR-OLD NINA
P.S. Oh, and just say yes to any sport Dad gets tickets for to watch during the Olympics. Even if Handball doesn’t seem like the hottest sport going around, it’s a BLAST.
