Sofi Tukker

Mixing club house beats with cowbells, bongos, guitar licks and Brazilian poetry, New York duo Sofi Tukker create a colorful, eclectic brand of dance music which grew in popularity thanks to being used in several advertising campaigns for Apple. Born in Frankfurt, Germany on May 17, 1992, singer-guitarist Sophie Hawley-Weld moved to Atlanta, Georgia at the age of four and had a well-travelled childhood which included living in Canada, Italy, and Brazil, where she discovered boss nova music and learned Portuguese. Growing up in Boston, Massachusetts, Tucker Halpern (born on December 26, 1989) was an NCAA basketball star who was heading for the NBA until he was struck down with a debilitating illness. Bed-ridden for eight months, he was forced to give up his dream of the NBA and with the help of YouTube tutorials and a love of 1990s electronica he began making his own beats and samples on his laptop. He returned to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island to complete his studies and kickstart a music career. Both Tucker Halpern and Sophie Hawley-Weld were in their final year when they met at an art gallery where she was performing with an acoustic trio, and he was DJ-ing. Tucker Halpern attempted to liven up her songs by laying down electronic beats and they ended up forming an unlikely connection. Sofi Tukker started recording together the next day and, on graduation, moved to New York, where they used the Chinatown studio of fellow electro duo The Knocks to make demos and began landing support gigs around the city. When Sophie Hawley-Weld began singing lyrics in Portuguese from a poem by Brazilian writer Chacal and Tucker Halpern applied a throbbing, hypnotic, deep house pulse underneath a primitive guitar riff, they discovered a trademark sound and had their breakthrough track “Drinkee.” The track ended up on an advertising campaign for the Apple Watch in 2015 before appearing on the duo's first EP Soft Animals the following year. They quickly built a following by touring with bands such as M83, Odesza, and Grimes. Apple then also used their track “Best Friend” in a campaign for the iPhone X which became a platinum-selling hit. They released Treehouse, their full-length debut album, in 2018. The next year, they issued the Dancing on the People EP, which was followed by a series of singles including 2020’s “Emergency” (with Novak and Yax.x) and 2021’s “Sun Came Up” (with John Summit). The duo’s second album, 2022’s Wet Tennis, reached number 12 on Billboard’s Dance Albums chart and landed in the Top 100 in Italy. In 2023, Sofi Tukker appeared on the single “Sacrifice” by Kx5, a duo comprised of deadmau5 and Kaskade. In 2024, Sofi Tukker returned with the album Bread, which featured the singles “Jacaré,” “Throw Some Ass,” and “Hey Homie.”

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