Piri
Sophie Leigh McBurnie (born 14 March 1999), known professionally as Piri, is an English musician. Born in Rochdale, she is a member of Piri & Tommy and Loud LDN, and has released songs in multiple genres, including house, disco, liquid drum and bass, jungle, speed garage, garage, hyperpop, and drum and bass. Piri is noted for her frog motif, derived from a nickname she and Tommy Villiers used to give each other, and has been praised for her pole dancing, her openness, and for maintaining an OnlyFans account alongside her music career. She has also been vocal about her experiences as a woman in the music industry. Three of her works as half of Piri & Tommy have entered UK charts; their 2021 single "Soft Spot" charted at No. 20 on the UK Independent Singles Breakers Chart, their 2022 single "On & On" charted at No. 99 on the UK Singles Chart, and their 2022 mixtape Froge.mp3 charted at No. 13 on the UK Dance Albums Chart. "Soft Spot" was ranked at No. 59 on Rolling Stones "200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time" in July 2022, while their 2022 works "Words", "On & On", Froge.mp3, and their cover of Charli XCX and Kim Petras' "Unlock It" have all appeared on year-end best-of lists. Life and career

1999–2020: Early life
Piri was born Sophie Leigh McBurnie on 14 March 1999 in Rochdale. Her parents were an Asda manager and a human resources manager; her mother was a fan of R&B and hip hop, while her father preferred rock and guitar-based music and neither could stand the others' tastes. Growing up, she would compose songs on her guitar as a means of expression, and her favourite artist was the Arctic Monkeys. Her stage name, which she stylises in lowercase, was a truncated form of Pirickili, which she created for a Tumblr account, and later used on K-pop Twitter for a stan account; she has stated that she came across it after using a random word generator, and that those interacting with her shortened it to Piri. She holds a degree in chemistry from Lancaster University, during which time she idolised the swagger of Doja Cat and the K-pop group Red Velvet, and was inspired by her organic chemistry lecturer and wanted to follow her into the profession. During her second year, she joined the university's pole fitness society after attending a taster session with her housemate as a joke; she was introduced to dance music around this time, and was in a tech house phase while writing her dissertation. After graduating, Piri had intended on taking a year out and then undertaking a Master's degree. Piri struggled financially at university; her own parents' high income meant that she was only entitled to basic student finance from Student Finance England, and her parents' own debts meant that they were unable to contribute. In May 2020, after finding that she had maxed out her overdraft and owed a friend £800, and that part time shifts at Asda were failing to clear her £2,000 debt, she began uploading pornographic content to OnlyFans. She told The Times in November 2022 that she experienced less backlash than she was expecting, and that her account had "about 1,000 to 2,000 fans paying about $12 a month", which after the site had deducted its fees meant she earned "between $10,000 and $20,000 a month". 2020–2022: "Soft Spot", "On & On", and Froge.mp3 
In 2020, just before the second United Kingdom COVID-19 lockdown, Piri matched on Tinder with Tommy Villiers, a member of the band Porij. A couple of weeks later, one of the band's photographers retweeted one of their photo-shoots, prompting her to find his Instagram account and ask him out. Their first date was at Piccadilly Gardens, at which they bonded over a shared love of disco; the pair later formed a support bubble in a student house in Manchester. After she realised that Villiers made beats, she asked if she could write on one, and they later set about writing together as Piri & Tommy; Villiers would later leave Porij to concentrate on Piri & Tommy. The first song the pair recorded, "Sunlight", was a house song, and the first song the pair released was "It's a Match", a disco song, recorded after both experimented with numerous genres. On 4 June 2021, Piri and Villiers released the liquid drum and bass single "Soft Spot". The song went viral on TikTok and Spotify, prompting EMI to sign them and re-release the song; "Soft Spot" later spent a week at No. 20 on the UK Independent Singles Breakers Chart and appeared at No. 59 on Rolling Stones "200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time" in July 2022. They followed this with the jungle track "Beachin" on 28 January 2022 and the garage song "Words" on 22 April 2022, following the latter with a three-day tour which attracted stage invasions. In May 2022, the pair performed at a TikTok showcase at The Great Escape Festival, their first festival performance, and with a loop of their most watched TikTok videos playing on a screen to their right. Also in May, Piri joined Loud LDN, having befriended the collective's co-founder Maisi the following January, and the following month, Piri and Villiers performed at Glastonbury. Piri and Villiers then signed to Polydor and released "On & On" on 28 July 2022, which charted at No. 99 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 28 on the UK Dance Singles Chart, and the following month, Piri and Villiers performed at Reading Festival. In September 2022, the pair supported Charli XCX at a concert in Concorde 2 in Brighton; later that month, Piri signed a solo publishing record deal with Warner Chappell Music. On 21 October 2022, she and Villiers released the mixtape Froge.mp3, which spent a week at No. 13 on the UK Dance Albums Chart in November 2022, and was promoted with Froge.tour. 2022–present: "Unlock It", "Updown", and "Nice 2 Me" 
Between November 2022 and January 2023, the pair were featured on multiple 'ones to watch' lists. One further single, "Unlock It", was released on 11 November 2022, and was a cover of the Charli XCX and Kim Petras song of the same name. In November 2022, a week after the end of Froge.tour, Piri and Villiers split up, though they announced the break-up in January. After the break-up, she uploaded several solo compositions to her SoundCloud account. On 20 January, the pair featured on MJ Cole's garage song "Feel It", and four weeks later, they released the hyperpop song "Updown". She later performed a series of pop-up shows. In April, Piri was one of three cover stars of that spring's Polyester magazine, along with Cat Burns and Doechii. The magazine's editor, Ione Gamble, stated that she chose them as examples of women who had used the internet to their advantage, and found it "incredible to hear [Piri] speak so passionately about both [her music and OnlyFans] careers". On 28 April 2023, Piri featured on the drum and bass song "Fumble" by Sudley, and on 24 May 2023, she and Villiers released "Nice 2 Me", a liquid drum and bass song. On 27 July 2023, Piri and Villiers released "Lovergirl", a garage song about pride in putting effort into relationships, which they released independently, and promoted with an animated video featuring avatars of them navigating a Mario Kart-inspired race course. On 25 August 2023, she and Maisi released "Head", a drum and bass song written about their feelings about success going to artists' heads, and which was promoted with a video directed, produced, and edited by Maisi. On 20 September 2023, she and New York City-based producer Tomcbumpz released "C U Never", a drum and bass song written about breaking up with a partner by phone, and later that month, she and Venbee performed at Listen Out, an Australian festival. In October, she and Villiers released "Bluetooth", a technology-themed drum and bass love song, which went viral on TikTok, and which she followed with a six-date tour. Artistry

Influences, voice, and songwriting 
Piri has cited PinkPantheress as a big inspiration, saying that her use of drum and bass breaks was "massively influential" on the band's sound. Piri & Tommy's "On & On" and Froge.mp3 have both been compared to PinkPantheress, with the latter specifically compared with her 2021 mixtape To Hell with It. Piri has also cited musical inspiration from the success of Nia Archives and Charli XCX, and from the experimentalism of Sophie. In addition, she has also named Beyoncé, Megan Thee Stallion, and Doja Cat as role models for feminity, and Charli XCX, Doja Cat, and burlesque routines featuring pole dancing as inspiration for her post-Piri & Tommy performances. In an August 2023 interview with Ticketmaster, Caity Baser cited Piri when asked who her inspirations were. Piri's voice has been noted for its neutral, untutored quality. When "Soft Spot" came out, her voice was compared to that of Ariana Grande, and when Kenya Grace entered the UK Singles Chart with "Strangers", the Official Charts Company described her voice as a combination of those of Piri, PinkPantheress, and Charli XCX. Reviewing "Beachin", Matthew Perpetua used his Fluxblog to note that she "sings with very modern English R&B inflections – a lot of restraint and no showy runs, but with an elegant soulfulness in smaller moments". Piri's songwriting addresses experiences common to people of her generation, and has been noted for its bluntness. She told Notion in March 2022 that she usually wrote about whatever was on her mind at the time, and that many of their tracks acted as snapshots of their relationship. Piri & Tommy's works have been noted for their self-sufficiency, with Froge.mp3 written, produced, mixed, and mastered entirely within their bedrooms. Cyclone Wehner of Australian music magazine Purple Sneakers wrote in October 2023 that Piri "blends airy female vocals, syncopated breakbeats and the sonic aesthetics of Timbaland's '90s avant'n'B, UKG, liquid funk and hyperpop". Music videos and stage

On stage, she would refer to the band's fans as "Piri & Tommy nation", and when performing "Beachin", she would throw beach balls into the crowd. Live Piri & Tommy shows featured Piri, Tommy, and a drummer, while solo shows featured dancers and burlesque. At Piri & Tommy concerts, the pair were noted for dressing as casually as their fans. A crocheted frog hat is a staple of her signature look; she told Dork in November 2022 that when she met Villiers, she was in a phase of drawing frogs and toads, and they started calling each other 'Froge' as a nickname. Her amphibian motif has appeared in music videos, with "On & On" seeing the pair eating psychedelic frogs. The Scala gig of Piri & Tommy's Froge.tour incorporated a pole routine, which Gigwise described as "a nice alternative from a typical dance choreo". Personal life
According to The Times in November 2022, she had over 419,000 followers on TikTok. She uses her account to upload videos of her dancing to her songs, and of her pole dancing. As of May 2022, she uploaded an average of two videos per day. Piri is noted for sharing her personal life with her followers more openly than past performers, which The Times described as a "refreshing change". She used a June 2023 edition of Gauchoworld to note that this was out of wanting her followers to understand her experiences. Her openness extends to the way she addresses live audiences, with a September 2022 Brighton & Hove News review enjoying "the candid way" Piri addressed her audience. Piri has been vocal about her experiences as a woman in the music industry, bemoaned a lack of inspiration and role models for women, and criticised scepticism of her sex work and TikTok success. In July 2023, she took part in a London Trans+ Pride march. She has also credited OnlyFans with increasing her body confidence and for giving her the money to fund her music career, buy a MacBook, Logic Pro, and a microphone, and move to north London, and criticised the misogyny she and other female creatives receive in comment sections, specifically singling out those attempting to lecture her as to the definition of drum and bass. Piri has also praised TikTok for its perceived ability to make any video go viral and criticised the platform for repeatedly banning her account unjustly, and has criticised Student Finance England for administering finance based on gross income as opposed to net income. Awards and accolades 
Piri's singles "Beachin", "Words", "On & On", "Updown", "Fumble", "Nice 2 Me", and "Bluetooth" have been declared BBC Radio 1's "Hottest Record", and she has been nominated for a number of awards and accolades. "Soft Spot" was listed at No. 59 on Rolling Stones "200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time" in July 2022, while Piri & Tommy's works "Words", "On & On", Froge.mp3, and "Unlock It" have all appeared on year-end best-of lists. Listicles

Discography

Mixtapes
Froge.mp3 (2022)

Singles

As lead artist

As featured artist

Music videos

Tours
 Piri & Tommy (Piri & Tommy) (2022)
 Froge.tour (Piri & Tommy) (2022)
 Extra Hot (Piri) (2023)

Notes

References

1999 births
Living people
People from Rochdale
Singers from Manchester
Rappers from Manchester
English drum and bass musicians
English dance musicians
Polydor Records artists
OnlyFans creators
Alumni of Lancaster University
21st-century English women singers
21st-century English singers
21st-century British rappers
English TikTokers