In the manner of all genuine art at this time on this spinning earth, it began with an off-handed comment. The almost illegally infectious party duo Sofi Tukker, Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern, were on a bus tour passing through Toronto. The Brooklyn-based band often sings in Portuguese, and posted the original version of their swishing, propulsive “Energia” on Instagram, when Pabllo Vittar, a bouncy and bright Brazilian queen, commented.
“We were like, ‘Wait, we know this person! We love this person! ’” On the bus, Tucker was working on a remix of “Energia” they were excited about, and mentioned it off-hand in a message to Pabllo, “like, ‘Hey, do you wanna get on this remix?’ We sent it to her that night.” A couple days later, Sophie says, Pabllo sent them her verses. “The first thing she sent back was incredible, and that was it.”
The trio’s electrified new version, renamed “Energia (Parte 2)” in an homage to endless energy, is a thudding, shimmering club track filtered through Lisbon sunshine. The music video, filmed in one rambunctious clear day in Portugal, crystallizes the first meeting of Sophie, Tucker, and Pabllo, after their mutually adoring, long-distance collaboration. Pabllo’s combination of graceful and outrageous with Sofi Tucker’s intellectual hedonism is a perfect alchemy. In the video, they’re constantly embracing, cuddling, when they’re not dancing and careening across the streets. While they were driving in a tuk tuk, Sophie says that they were a constant traffic-stopper. So many people recognized Pabllo and would swerve, “get out of the car, just to like say thank you to her and then get back in the car.”
“Energia” is a truly blessed video. The group met in Portugal for one day of filming and the planets showed up. The lyrics of “Energia” translate from Portuguese into descriptions of a sun in the sky, reflecting on the ocean, and Sophie had imagined it on a cliff. The cliffs they found in Portugal were underneath the sun and a daytime moon. “It’s crazy! It works so perfectly with the meaning of the song,” Sophie says, “there is something very final and epic about those cliffs and those lyrics.” Tucker says if it had been cloudy, he would have had to moon the camera, and they would have been totally fucked. “It was one of the coolest days ever,” Sophie says, “we kept looking at each other we were just asking each other if this is real life.” “We were lucky to have it,” Tucker adds.