Sophie Xeon, the revolutionary trans producer and electronic musician who had a ground breaking affect on pop music has died at the age of 34 following an accident in Athens, Greece on February 30, 2020.
The artist's legacy is hard to compress in a single post, from famously stating "God is Trans" in her 2018 interview with Paper Magazine to having produced tracks for pop icons like Madonna and Charlie XCX, the world is mourning the once-mysterious artists death as both a monumental loss for the music industry and the LGBTQI+ community.
Sophie's work spanned the exploratory perimeter of electronic dance genres and the core of mainstream pop, having worked with Madonna, Charli XCX and Vince Staples. In 2018 she released her single, It's Okay To Cry, alongside the debut album, Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides - an electronic soundscape that leans on her sprawling knowledge of pop and dissects each element of each song, thematically and sonically, and rearranges them into visceral punches of emotionally charged tracks. Following the release of Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, the album was nominated for a Grammy Award as best dance/electronic album.
For years, the artist was an enigma. The name behind so many iconic songs - some of which her own - like Madonna's Bitch I’m Madonna in 2015, but never attached to a face, gender or age. Sophie existed without perception until she came out as Trans in 2018, taking centre stage, and owning her pop title once and for all. “Pop should be about finding new forms for feelings and communicating them in ways which talk about the world around us right now,” Sophie told The New York Times in 2015. “There’s no need to view something commercial as necessarily bad.”
Her 2018 single It's Okay To Cry sent ripples across the music industry and LGBTQI+ community as a whole. A profound statement as her unmodulated voice whispers lyrics like, "I hope you don't take this the wrong way/ But I think your inside is your best side," and “I don't mean to reproach you by saying this / I know that scares you / All of the big occasions you might have missed / No, I accept you / And I don't even need to know your reasons.” A life affirming lyrical soundscape to the self, fortified in the instance of monumental visibility in the trans community.
As Christine and the Queens wrote on Twitter: “Sophie was a stellar producer, a visionary, a reference. She rebelled against the narrow, normative society by being an absolute triumph, both as an artist and as a woman.”
You can watch It's Okay To Cry, below.
