Piri

Sophie Leigh McBurnie (born 14 March 1999), known professionally as Piri, is an English musician.

Born in Rochdale in Greater Manchester, she is half of the band Piri & Tommy and a member of the female and genderqueer collective Loud LDN.

Piri is noted for her frog motif, and has been praised for her pole dancing, her openness, and for maintaining an OnlyFans account alongside her music career.

Three of her works as half of Piri & Tommy have entered the UK charts: their 2021 single "Soft Spot" reached No. 20 on the UK Independent Singles Breakers Chart, their 2022 single "On & On" went to No. 99 on the UK Singles Chart, and their 2022 mixtape Froge.mp3 made No. 13 on the UK Dance Albums Chart.

"Soft Spot" was ranked No. 59 on Rolling Stone's "200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time" in July 2022, while their 2022 works "Words", "On & On", and Froge.mp3, and their cover of Charli XCX and Kim Petras's "Unlock It" all appeared on year-end best-of lists.

Piri was born Sophie Leigh McBurnie on 14 March 1999, and grew up in Rochdale in Greater Manchester.

Her parents were an Asda manager and a human resources manager; her father was a fan of indie rock, while her mother preferred R&B and hip hop, and neither could stand the other's music tastes.

While growing up, McBurnie composed songs on her guitar as a means of expression and often listened to Arctic Monkeys, Mary J. Blige, and later the Ting Tings and Owl City, to whom she learnt to harmonise.

Piri describes herself as a chronically online teenager, and would stay up all night playing Minecraft with people in other countries; she became interested in anime, through which she found J-pop.

Towards the end of sixth form, she became obsessed with K-pop boy bands, including Exo, and then K-pop girl groups such as Blackpink, Red Velvet, and Twice.

She created a stan account on K-pop Twitter; her username for which, Pirickili, stylised in lowercase, had been recycled from her Tumblr account, which in turn had been adopted after it was suggested to her by a random word generator.

She studied chemistry at Lancaster University, having first become interested in science in Year 5.

She had planned to take biology before falling in love with chemistry at A-level.

During her studies, she idolised the swagger of Doja Cat and the K-pop group Red Velvet, and was inspired by her organic chemistry lecturer, whom she considered following into the profession.

During her second year, she joined the university's pole fitness society after attending a taster session as a joke with her housemate.

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 to take a year away from education and then undertake a master's degree.

Piri struggled financially at university; her own parents' high income meant that she was only entitled to basic-rate student finance, and their debts meant that they were unable to contribute.

By May 2020, she had run out of overdraft and also owed a friend £800, and her part-time shifts at Asda were failing to clear her £2,000 debt.

In response, she began uploading pornographic content to OnlyFans, a subscription-based social media platform.

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".

She used the proceeds to fund her music career, buy a MacBook, Logic Pro, and a microphone, and move to north London.

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.

She later moved into Porij's student house in Whalley Range in Manchester.

After she realised that Villiers made beats, she asked if she could write on one; they later began writing together as Piri & Tommy.

Villiers later left Porij to concentrate on Piri & Tommy.

The first song the pair recorded, "Sunlight", was a house song, and the first song they released, "It's a Match", in March 2021, was a disco song, recorded after both had experimented with numerous genres.

In June 2021, they released the liquid drum and bass single "Soft Spot", which 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 was listed at No. 59 on Rolling Stone's "200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time" in July 2022.

They followed "Soft Spot" with the jungle track "Beachin" and the garage song "Words", following the latter's release with a three-day tour.

In May 2022, the pair performed in a TikTok showcase at The Great Escape Festival, their first pop music festival performance.

The following month, Piri & Tommy performed at the Glastonbury Festival.

Piri & Tommy then signed to Polydor and released "On & On" in July 2022; it reached No. 99 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 28 on the UK Dance Singles Chart.

The following month, they performed at the Reading Festival.

In September 2022, the pair supported Charli XCX at a concert in Concorde 2 in Brighton, and in October 2022, Piri & Tommy 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.

Between November 2022 and January 2023, Piri & Tommy were featured on multiple "ones to watch" lists.

They appeared on Vevo's Dscvr Artists to Watch 2023 list and MTV Push 2023 in November, and were longlisted for the BBC's Sound of 2023, an award ultimately won by Flo.

They also appeared on TikTok's "Breakthrough Artists 2022", Montreux Jazz Festival's "Spotlight 20 Artists to Watch in 2023", Ticketmaster's 2023 "Breakthrough Artists" list, and Zane Lowe's "23 New Artists to Watch in 2023".