Campus Walk and Talk with DakhaBrakha

DakhaBrakha is a world-music quartet from Kyiv, Ukraine. Reflecting fundamental elements of sound and soul. The group returned to Tallahassee in April 2025 to play another show in conjunction with FSU. The day after the concert, the band toured the FSU campus and shared their thoughts on a number of topics.

What is the importance of your current US tour?

Yeah, it's really very important for us to be now here because for us it's important to understand the mood of the citizens under this situation, after this election. So that's why for us it was important to know this, to feel this, has the attitude of American people changeD or not.

do you see Americans' supporting Ukraine?

We see these changes because and it's really great for us to feel that this support became even larger and deeper than it was in the beginning of war with the Russian invasion, because now we can see and can feel that lots of US people really support us and support Ukraine, and they support Ukraine through our concerts. 

what has been the Audience reception?

We think that now really people support us even more. For example, we have one song devoted to our soldiers our defenders and after this song in each concert during this tour, people stand up and we have the standing ovations for several minutes. It's in different states. In Georgia, in Savannah, in Knoxville, TN, in New York, everywhere. So each concert after this song, people want to congratulate and want to give this honor to our defenders and for us it really means a lot because we understand that they can feel our pain and they understand they need to continue to support us and they need to do something.

is Music a tool for diplomacy?

Music is not like the best way of diplomacy, not the exclusive instrument and not the most effective because we see that our military is, our soldiers are the main instrument of diplomacy now. As our militaries and people who take arms in their hands and resist and defend our country, they surprised the whole world because everybody thought we would have only three days or one week of resistance and we will be invaded. But these people, they really surprised the world and we're still defending and they still resisted.



We are musicians and this is our way of speaking about the war. So in this universal language that is clear everywhere, we try to use all our skills, all our power and our ability to travel a lot and to speak with people, so to support our country and to tell people about our struggle for freedom, for democracy. It's important for us and as we are musicians, we have this language, this way of communication with other people.

is it important for universities like fsu to have a ukraine task force?

Of course, it's very important. Vilma (FUENTES) for example wants to collaborate everywhere and it's always good if you can do good actions. Always be better. And it's also very important that Ukraine became on the map of the walls because like even 10 or 15 or 20 years ago, people mostly knew about Russia, about the empire and people don't know any Ukrainian identity, Ukrainian history, and now there is more interest in Ukraine. It is an interesting territory, interesting country, with a deep and rich history and culture. We are happy that people want to know more.

What is DakhaBrakha'S message?

So for us it's very important now to explain to people and to show people that it's not a problem of Ukraine now it's a big challenge for the world, for democracy in the world, the whole world. And there is no way to forget to pay attention to this. Only together can we build a new system in the world, a new peaceful system in the world. That's why we need the support of every country in the world and we try to explain this. And it's not only about Ukraine, it's about the world safety.

any final Thoughts?

We again want to thank the U.S. people for their support because we are really glad to see how many reasonable, clever, open people who understand what happens in Ukraine in the world are in the U.S. and it really gives you hope that we can create some new system of safety in the world because we see that there are other people who think about it. We need to struggle together and Ukraine will not be alone in this struggle. So it's also very important for us.

And thank you for all for listening because all of this is like small pieces and it's also very important if it's one piece people can know something new. It can make us somehow connected to the situation. It's important.

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Surprise!

During Dahkabrahka's campus tour, FSU student Andrew Kravchuk walked by the group and thought he heard a conversation in Ukrainian. Andy stopped and started to talk to the group fluently in Ukrainian. The second-year Seminole grew up in New Jersey and is a first-generation Ukrainian American. He graduated from a Ukrainian high school and was thrilled to meet the band.