Electro-pop duo Sofi Tukker on their Brazilian influences and new album Bread
Sofi Tukker never thought their Brazilian-inspired sound would become massively popular
You might know the Grammy-nominated electro-pop duo Sofi Tukker from their hit song Best Friend, which blew up in 2017 after being featured in Apple's iPhone X commercial. Now, Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern are back with their third and latest record, Bread.
The title of the album is an acronym for "Be Really Energetic and Dance," but it also works as a literal reference to the food. Like bread — a borderless food that every culture has its own version of — Sofi Tukker's vibrant sound is also borderless, igniting dance floors around the world with their genre-agnostic mix of electronic and bossa nova-inspired beats.
The duo first met as students at Brown University in Providence, R.I., when they both attended an event at an art gallery that Hawley-Weld was playing at. She had started making Portuguese music, influenced by a study abroad program in Brazil, and Halpern was a basketball player who taught himself how to make music while on seven months of bed rest for an illness.
"[Tucker] saw me play and he was like, 'I really like what you're doing. It's a little slow, though. Could I add some drums to it?'" Hawley-Weld recalls in an interview with Q's Tom Power. "He basically brought in a drum loop and it just sounded really good. So we ended up recording it the next day. And then we just haven't stopped making music ever since that day."
With Halpern's encouragement, Hawley-Weld canceled her plans to move to Brazil after school and instead moved to New York with her collaborator. After a year of pursuing music together full-time, they built up a body of work and started finding success as Sofi Tukker.
We really didn't anticipate this to be the thing that would appeal to a lot of people.- Sophie Hawley-Weld
On their debut single, Drinkee, which was nominated for best dance recording at the Grammys in 2017, Hawley-Weld sings exclusively in Portuguese. The song is based on the poem Relógio by the Brazilian poet Chacal.
"We thought it would be this niche thing that maybe some people would hear," she says. "We really didn't anticipate this to be the thing that would appeal to a lot of people…. It's something that doesn't sound like anything else."
On Bread, Sofi Tukker return to Chacal's poetry yet again with the track Cafuné (a Portuguese word that describes the process of running your hands gingerly through a loved one's hair), which features lyrics in both Portuguese and English. They also recorded the album entirely in Brazil.
"For me, it's definitely the most inspiring place to be in terms of musical references," Hawley-Weld says.
"Brazil's been a big part of [our music] since the very first moment the idea of being a band came together," adds Halpern. "I don't speak Portuguese like Sophie, so being there is a little different for me, you know, it's definitely not as easy or natural, but it is such an unbelievable place. So I will always spend a lot of time there for sure."
The full interview with Sofi Tukker is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Sofi Tukker produced by Mitch Pollock.
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