SOFI TUKKER
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- SOFI TUKKER – best friends Sophie Hawley-Weld & Tucker Halpern – have a global reputation as the most vibrant, positive and community-driven dance music group out there.SOFI TUKKER have spent nearly a decade building their global reputation as the most vibrant, positive and community-driven dance music group out there. They’re a duo, and—no, they’re not dating or related. Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern are best friends, with distinct personalities and backgrounds that create an exhilarating blend. “One of the reasons why we can live together, travel together, work together and not totally kill each other is because we're so different,” laughs Tucker. The pair's opposite upbringings create a special bond between them where both have learned to detach from their own pre-judgments and meet each other in the middle. SOFI TUKKER have a no compromise approach to creating – if the idea doesn't excite both of them, it's on the scrap heap. They come at everything they create with equal footing, and their competitive yet supportive partnership is constantly evolving and propelling them into new realms. Even though they spend most of their time together, they are “from different planets.” One thing they can both agree on, though, is Brazil, where they spent a month at the beginning of 2023, living up the sights and sounds of Carnaval and finishing up their most ground-breaking and inspired music to date. The energy of Carnaval is palpable in one of their upcoming songs “Trompa”, a booty-shaking anthem that liberates your soul through involuntary movement. “We have both returned to our musical roots,” says Sophie. “Over the past several years we've explored a lot of genres, but at the moment we're the most inspired by house, jazz and Brazil than ever before.” Their new song “Jacaré'' is an ode to Brazil and its inherent sensuality. At one point in the music video, Sophie’s fingers trace the outline of a mountain in Rio, shaped like a woman’s nipple, a prelude to the seduction to follow. One of the themes they’ve been exploring in their new music is undoing the idea of purity, which she describes in one of the upcoming songs as an “archaic fallacy that doesn’t belong to me.” It’s a continuation of the theme the duo started exploring on their first EP Soft Animals, whose title was inspired by the Mary Oliver poem “Wild Geese'': “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” This next phase of music, which is even more bouncing with life than before, continues to advocate for this, in a more honed-in and sophisticated way. “‘Jacaré’ means alligator in Portuguese, but it's also a derogatory word for women who like women,' 'a term which the duo flip on its head. Sophie adds, “It's a celebration of Brazil, of women and the LGBTQ+ community.” Unlike Sophie, who is fluent in Portuguese, Tucker's entry point for Rio came via collaboration. The group’s first collaborator was the Brazilian poet Chacal, who remains a close friend and frequent collaborator on their music’s Portuguese lyrics. “Being here has enriched my excitement and respect for this culture,” says Tucker, wide-eyed. “I feel a sense of pride for the country because of how much of a role it plays in our music. Brazil is like a member of the band.” Tucker and Sophie met while they were students at Brown University, where Tucker was a basketball jock and Sophie was a self-described hippie-nerd. They didn’t cross paths until their senior year, when Tucker met Sophie by chance at a party he was playing at. She was performing in a jazz trio with all original music she had written in Portuguese, having just returned from living abroad in Rio de Janeiro. Even though Sophie had plans to return there, Tucker convinced her to take a leap of faith and move to New York with him in order to form a band instead. Less than a year later, in 2015, the pair put out their debut single “Drinkee,” which to their surprise and delight was nominated for a Grammy, quickly followed by a second Grammy nomination for their debut album Treehouse. Fast forward a few years and the duo are no stranger to accolades, having earned Platinum & Gold record sales on five continents, #1 records on multiple radio formats, and over a billion streams. To add to the massive impact of their music on popular culture, SOFI TUKKER have soundtracked hundreds of syncs in movies, tv and commercials, including major advertising campaigns for Apple ("Best Friend"), Peloton ("Purple Hat") and Smartwater ("Wet Tennis”). But with all that success, they have stayed true to their roots. When Tucker made his initial pitch to Sophie, he promised her that forming a band would help her live the life of service she craved. At first, she struggled with the notion that dance music and the associated culture was frivolous. Sophie was born in Germany and grew up living around the world for her parent’s work in international schools. She opted for a degree in conflict resolution with the intention of bringing people together. What she didn’t know at the time was that her passion for writing songs on the guitar, inspired by the likes of Feist and João Gilberto, was an integral part of how she would accomplish some of those goals. “When I was convincing Sophie to start this band with me, she thought it was a selfish move and wanted to put her education to use, so my pitch was that if we started a band we'd be able to have a bigger platform to make way more of a difference,” says Tucker. “We've always been oriented around that.” Throughout the years, they’ve done work with Planned Parenthood, The Trevor Project, National Alliance on Mental Illness, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, the March for Our Lives and the Red Cross, among others. Before his senior year as a division 1 basketball player, Tucker, from Boston Massachusetts, fell ill with Epstein-Barr virus. He went from being one of the league’s leading scorers to being on bed rest, where he taught himself to produce music via YouTube tutorials. Rather than growing depressed because his plans of going pro were in jeopardy, during the eight months when he couldn’t play, he decided to harness that unique window of time to focus on another passion. At the time he didn't realize that he wouldn't be able to return to basketball and that his newfound skill would soon become the center of his determination. When the doctor eventually told him his basketball career was over, Tucker bought a DJ controller at Guitar Center on the car ride home that day. “I had spent 22 years trying to perfect basketball and thought – 'I'm fucked.' But then I started DJ-ing and everything changed.” That turning point is part of why they're as passionate as ever about how to make their touring life more sustainable. So much of what the duo do is directly linked to physical wellness and mental health, from the music and the shows to their advocacy and philanthropic work. That’s why they take such extraordinary care of themselves, their bodies, and their minds while they're on the road relentlessly. “We tour like athletes and we know we can only really spread positivity when we’re feeling whole and positive ourselves,” says Sophie. They are advocates for therapy and meditation, and Sophie, while being professionally the life of the party, is sober. That may seem at odds with their recent announcement that they are co-owners of a cachaça brand (Novo Fogo), but that contradiction is part of what has always made the band special. The Novo Fogo team is equally passionate about flavor and taste as they are about trees and biodiversity. Earlier this year the band spent a week in Brazil at Novo Fogo’s distillery in the Atlantic Rainforest, planting endangered species of trees in their natural habitats as part of the Un-Endangered Forest project. “We’ve always been inspired by the smells, tastes, and colors of the rainforest, so it means a lot to us to be a part of preserving it,” says Sophie. "We also want sober people to know that they are still invited to participate at the same party. We want our shows to be a non-judgment zone in every way. For people to feel free in whatever way works for them.” Freedom of expression is another of their core values. As the band took off, Tucker, who was a History of Art and Architecture major, applied his design interests toward his bold and colorful personal style on and off stage, breaking with the stereotypical gender norms of the “jock”. Fashion is an integral part of the band’s creative inspiration and output; 2023 saw Sophie & Tucker as the faces of G-Star Raw's new colorful denim campaign, and the duo recently launched a vibrant bag collection with Baboon To The Moon. This follows last year’s launch of their own fashion label, WET TENNIS, with a presentation at NYFW showcasing their signature ombre designs. “It all starts with music but we are building out the world that the music lives in through as many senses and mediums as we can.” For SOFI TUKKER the last few years have solidified their values and connection with their community, which emerged online during the COVID-19 pandemic, fervently calling themselves the Freak Fam. “It was a huge moment of transformation,” says Tucker. When several months of tour plans were canceled in one fell swoop, Sophie and Tucker self-isolated at their home in Florida, and decided to livestream themselves DJing, an act they committed to every day for the remainder of 2020 as a way of keeping their mental health in check. They wound up streaming to over 5 million people that year, many of whom were tuning in and chatting with each other daily. The evolution of this added immense purpose to Sophie and Tucker's sense of wellbeing. “It wasn't even conscious until months in and we were like, holy shit, these people are going through the same things as we are,” recalls Tucker. The pair always dreamed of building a beautiful, safe, and friendly space, but never imagined that months of isolation would result in an ever-expanding fan base forming their own meet-ups and lifelong bonds, including literal freak fam marriages and babies. Community for SOFI TUKKER also takes form through their artistic collaborations with artists around the world, such as Amadou & Mariam (Mali), Mahmut Orhan (Turkey), Bomba Estéreo (Colombia), and Pabllo Vittar (Brazil), to name only a few. In the first half of 2023, the duo released collaborations with Kx5 (Kaskade & Deadmau5) on “Sacrifice,” an emotionally charged track about ambition and choosing yourself and your job over someone you love. Also imminent and close to heart are the two songs they've contributed to the forthcoming debut album from their friend LP Giobbi. “Her career blossoming is one of the most fulfilling things we’ve gotten to be a part of,” says Sophie. The band met LP Giobbi at a music festival in 2017 and soon after invited her to be their opening DJ on tour. “She wasn't a professional DJ at the time we saw her play but we told her – You should be!” recalls Tucker. The duo are also on the board of FEMME HOUSE, LP’s nonprofit which is dedicated to counteracting gender disparities in dance music. DJing is a shared love for Sophie & Tucker as well, who are in their third consecutive year of their DJ Residency in Las Vegas, and several summer plays in Ibiza. Meanwhile their versatility as a live act has them packing festival fields and sold out headline tours – with Sophie singing and playing guitar and Tucker alternating between singing, bespoke samplers, and bass – performing for hundreds of thousands of people, each year playing to exponentially bigger crowds and traveling to new corners of the world. Their brand new live show is something they’ve been dreaming up for many years. Like the duo, it’s bold, colorful, energetic and immersive. They debuted it at Coachella and they are bringing it around the world to major festivals in 2023, including US dates at Lollapalooza, Osheaga, Governors Ball, Electric Forest and Bonnaroo. “Imagine a playground, surrounded by ornate architecture, and set in the middle of an otherworldly rainforest” says Sophie. “We created the world that the new music is meant to live in: playful, sexy, lush, and brimming with bright color.” While SOFI TUKKER are creating new worlds, they’re also actively participating in this one. The yin and yang is found in everything SOFI TUKKER; The organic and the electronic. The party and the purpose. The built-world and the natural world. The playfulness and the sophistication. The Sophie and the Tucker.̸WET TENNIS, Treehouse, & Soft Animals EP
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