There's electricity among the youthful crowd awaiting SOPHIE's emergence onstage inside Brooklyn Steel, a repurposed manufacturing plant. I stand mid-orchestra, pressed against Juul-sucking fans, as crimson lasers buzz overhead and a hum rumbles from the speakers. At stage right, the artist manifests, her form distorted behind a maze of screens. Slowly, she traverses the stage, a lithe silhouette, until she takes her place at its center. Swaddled in a gauzy wrap that billows over a latex skirt and rhinestone bralette, she arches her spine. Sounds crescendo into a cry of "Take me to Dubai" -- a tease of a new track of the same name -- and SOPHIE commands me to move.
That was September, and what I witnessed was a metaphor for the Scotland-born, Los Angeles-based producer-turned-pop-star's rising career, which has involved a hard-won struggle toward stepping into view. A little more than a year ago, "SOPHIE" was still a faceless moniker for a musician affiliated with producer A.G. Cook -- with whom she worked on material for soda-sapphic pop persona QT -- and the subgenre of PC Music, known for its exaggerated electronic riffs. Soon, questions swirled about SOPHIE's biography and gender. As she invited other artists to perform onstage in her place and avoided questions about her provenance, SOPHIE left most fans with only her name to go by. Many presumed she was a male studio geek hiding behind the feminine alias, a notion bolstered by interviews in The New York Times and Rolling Stone, in which the masculine pronoun was used.
But with the October 2017 release of the video for her single "It's Okay to Cry," we finally saw SOPHIE. I, was that a teardrop in your eye? I never thought I'd see you cry, she croons straight into the camera, her face framed by a pyramid of auburn-red curls and her hand caressing her cherry pout. The green-screen weather behind her shifts from marshmallow clouds to a thunderous downpour. This, clearly, was the moment that SOPHIE was ready to bare herself -- visually, emotionally, sonically -- and to fully embody her art as a singular entity.
"That was just a time when everything aligned," SOPHIE says, speaking to me just after that September show, with a soft sense of hurt crackling in her voice. "Even now, it's difficult for me to reenter the headspace I was in before. It's not a totally natural state of being for me to be visible. But it's something I'm learning a lot from -- it can be helpful and nourishing to feel embodied. I didn't used to feel like my physical self bore any resemblance to what I felt inside."
Her reluctance to appear as a frontwoman was also, perhaps, an effort to detangle the whole identity narrative before it eclipsed her work. "My music is political, but talking about politics is boring," she says. "I'd rather have a more emotional conversation through the music. You can say something more multidimensional. Pop music is the most relevant format we have to discuss anything. A song can have meaning to people anywhere, without any context."
SOPHIE's music is an innovation when it comes to the electro-pop formula: a brain-tingling ecstasy of disparate (and often disorienting) synthetic sounds that are at once conceptual and surprisingly danceable. Her 2015 compilation album, Product, caught widespread attention with the sped-up, high-pitched vocals of "Bipp" and the fizzing bubble-pops of "Lemonade." SOPHIE says, "I make music to process my feelings;" however, the saccharine sweetness of her songs is often born of hard times. "Living in London -- sometimes I was really miserable, and [Product is] the music I created at that time. It certainly wasn't a celebration of feeling great or lemonade."
With this past June's release of SOPHIE's first studio album, Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides, which contains "It's Okay to Cry," the artist stuck to her signature plastic-pop vernacular while expanding to new, experimental territory. It's a vulnerable departure, with singles like the beat-heavy "Ponyboy," as well as "Faceshopping," which interrogates the line between artificiality and reality. It also boasts a roster of increasingly ambitious tracks, like "Is It Cold in the Water," a composition that swells with synths as a voice breathes, I'm freezing / I'm burning / I've left my home. "I'm trying to get to a point with my music where I'm just responding exactly to the way my body feels in that moment," she says.
It's three days after SOPHIE's Brooklyn Steel performance, and she's drowsy, having spent a late night polishing new tracks in the studio. "My sign is Virgo," she says, noting that she identifies with Virgo's perfectionist tendencies. It's a proclivity that resulted in her canceling a string of European tour dates -- as well as a controversial Tel Aviv show -- in lieu of finishing new songs, but it's also drawn high-profile collaborators like Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and Madonna. "It's a long way to come for someone who felt completely isolated from the music world and music experiences," SOPHIE says, invoking a word that might describe her own art. "It's surreal."
Photography by Martin Schoeller.
Styling by Mindy Le Brock.
Makeup: Christina Waltz.
Photographed at The Studio, Los Angeles
Gus Kenworthy's open letter to the LGBTQ+ Paris Olympians
The gay silver medalist offers queer pearls of wisdom for LGBTQ+ athletes competing at this year's Olympic Games.
Paris is burning, honey! There will likely be more openly queer athletes at this Olympics than any previous Games. And as Paris would say, “That’s hot!” Let me start this letter by saying how fucking proud I am of each and every one of you. Whether you’re competing out and proud, still figuring things out for yourself, or perhaps keeping things under wraps for right now, you should hold your head high knowing that you’ve already done the damn thing: You’re an Olympian!
When I qualified for my first Games in 2014, my agent Michael said something to me that really resonated: “Once an Olympian, always an Olympian.” So I encourage you to soak up your experience in France and bask in that feeling of accomplishment. Nobody can take that away from you. Win or lose, you will forever be an Olympian. You’ve just added a title to accompany your name for the rest of your life. Congrats — you’re basically a doctor.
I competed in my first Games when I was still in the closet. I remember sharing a room with one of my best friends, Bobby, and yearning to tell him that I was gay. We were competing in Sochi, Russia, where there were and still are anti-LGBTQ+ laws in place. There was a strong anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment surrounding that Games. Needless to say, I didn’t feel welcomed.
The Olympics are supposed to be about inclusivity; it’s one of the only times that the entire world comes together for a greater good: for sport. Countries and their respective athletes get to set aside differences in politics, race, language, religion, and socioeconomic status to play and to compete on a global stage as equals.
Yet there I was in Russia, where legislation stated that any public announcement or display of my sexuality would be perceived as protest and punished as “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors.” At the time, I was too scared to speak my truth. I wanted to. I wanted to walk tall and take a stand for myself and for the community that I was born into but had not yet met, but it was all too overwhelming. I hadn’t even told my mum yet. I didn’t want to burden Bobby with my secret because I worried it might distract him and take away his focus from the competition, so I kept it to myself. But it got the gears churning in my head about what it might be like to actually come out.
For all the years leading up to that point, I had imagined coming out would be a step that I would take after retirement. I figured I would have my ski career and then, whenever it was over, I would get to come out and live my truth. A second life. A separate life. The two things just didn’t coexist in my mind because there was nobody to point to as a reference. Not only had there not been an openly gay professional athlete in my sport, but there hadn’t even been one in my industry.
Freeskiing, the sport I compete in, is part of the action sports industry, which includes snowboarding, skateboarding, BMX, motocross, mountain biking, surfing, etc. Outside of the Olympics, our marquee event is the X Games, which is kind of an edgy, hardcore alternative to traditional sports. My income wasn’t government-subsidized. I wasn’t being paid by a national team. I wasn’t a recipient of grants. My income was based entirely off of prize winnings, victory bonuses, and sponsorship deals, and I worried I would alienate myself by coming out. I worried I would lose my sponsors and my following and would risk being judged poorly at the events. As anybody in the closet can attest to, I built narratives out of fear and spun them until they were all-consuming. On February 13, 2014, after falling in the first of my two runs in the final, I managed to compartmentalize the turmoil going on in my head and heart and put down the run that I had gone to Sochi to do. I walked away with the silver medal — one of the greatest accomplishments of my life.
The following year, I decided I was ready to be me. I hoped maybe there was room in the professional sports world for a gay skier, but I decided that even if all my fears were realized, and I was pushed out of the sport, I had already accomplished enough to feel proud of, and I could walk away knowing that. I would forever be an Olympian — and an Olympic medalist, at that.
Not only did it turn out that my fears were unfounded — but in fact, the reaction was quite the opposite. I was met with so much love and support. The following season was the best of my career. I guess it’s true what they say: “The truth shall set you free.” Suddenly feeling unshackled and getting to compete as myself, I skied better than I ever had. I didn’t miss the podium at a single event that year. Nothing had changed with my training or my approach; I was just suddenly much more present. More centered. Happier. I had a weight off of my shoulders and didn’t have to worry about compartmentalizing, and it translated on the slopes.
I say all this to, hopefully, give you all some encouragement regardless of where you’re at on your journey of self-discovery, self-acceptance, and self-love. If you’re not ready to come out yet, that’s OK. I know it can be a struggle. But I also know that it does get better. Only you know what’s best for you and when is the right time. Despite not knowing who you are, I am rooting for you. “We are all rooting for you!” I hope you read that last sentence in Tyra’s voice.
If, on the other hand, you’re already out and proud, then congratulations! I hope you feel the love and support that is coming your way from me and the entire LGBTQ+ community. Regardless of which country’s flag you are representing, you are also representing the Progress Pride flag, and you are being cheered on by all of us that that flag represents.
I know the mix of e-mo-tions you’re probably feeling right now: excitement and nerves coursing through your veins like adrenaline. Harness it! Use it as fuel. You can do this! Growing up, I thought being gay was a disadvantage. But I’ve come to learn that it’s a superpower. Just by being yourself, you are going to make a positive change in the world. You are going to inspire and help so many people, young and old, during these Paris Games and beyond. That’s the ripple effect, and you are all about to make a huge fucking splash! Unless you’re a diver and then, um, hopefully, no splash at all. Like wait, was that a water droplet? I don’t know, I couldn’t see it.
So go! Win! Slay the house down boots! I have no doubt you will. You know why? Because that little plus sign at the end of LGBTQ+ means you’re better than your competitors. You’ve got this.
With immense Pride,
Gus Kenworthy
This article is part of Out's July/August issue, which hits newsstands on July 2. Support queer media and subscribe— or download the issue through Apple News, Zinio, Nook, or PressReader starting June 18.