Meet Stefano Riva | DJ and head of Ragazza Milano

We had the good fortune of connecting with Stefano Riva and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Stefano, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?

Honestly, music has always been an important issue for me. I can’t remember a single day in my life where music was not played in my room or my head.

So, when I was 22 years old, I decided to start djing and organizing events/partys because I felt there was not a real spot for my vision in what the milanese clubbing scene was offering at the time.

For me, as a pop music and culture lover, this scenario is something very serious and has to be treated and celebrated as one.

After a while, I felt like this need was shared by a lot of people in the clubbing scene, for the first time in my life I felt my people in everything I was doing…and we were like “it’s fun dancing to Britney Spears’ music, but we are sure there has to be something more stimulating in her 20 years old catalog than Toxic”.

That’s why I don’t like to see Ragazza Milano as a business but as a community, we communicate without a single word spoken.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
When I talk about this journey, I don’t like to use the term “business”, I prefer using the term family.
Ragazza Milano is a creative collective born in 2018 from one of my fantasy and it deals with the organization of cultural and entertainment events through its sought-after records and niche-pop musical djsets.

Concretely the family is composed by me, my three talented performers – Mistress Mirage, Gin Gin Mezzanotte and Ander Killer – and our photographer aunty Lisa Stein. We are all in this together and we like to entertain you in every way possible to girls like us.

In a hungry world like ours, I don’t think to be that special or talented: I’m just “La Ragazza di Milano” and that’s enough for me.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?

First of all, I have to thank every single person who spent the night dancing and singing with me and my girls in the last five years, I owe them everything more than they know.

Secondly, I want to thank all my team because they helped giving life to my vision in every way possible, they trusted the process from day one.

At last, I want to mention two clubs realities that somehow opened the door for me here in Milan: Popstarz and Glitter Club, thank you for showing me that quality is more relevant than quantity…and that you can party from Thursday to Saturday and still looking gorgeous for the after party.

Website: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0OY6LGQu7fk8V4X43c81zn?si=MwSmlf4FRjiR3QWBYhkCHQ&nd=1

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ragazzamilano_/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ragazzamilan

Image Credits
Photographer: Elisa Hassert (@hassert.elisa) Talents: Stefano Riva (@_stefanoriva), Mistress Mirage (@_miragess_) and GinGin Mezzanotte (@gingin.mezzanotte)