Sophie Xeon, better known as SOPHIE, was a transgender producer, songwriter, and DJ who helped shape the hyper-pop industry into what it is today. She was born in England on September 17, 1986. Even though she wasn’t very open about her personal life, Sophie has talked about how she became interested in music production. She told LENNY LETTER when she was 9 to 10 years old, she told her parents she wanted to drop out of school and become a producer. Her father introduced her to electronic music, taking her to raves and giving her rave cassette tapes, telling her, “This is going to be important for you,” He was right. She fell in love with the music and the process of making it. Sophie released her first original EP Nothing More to Say / Eeehhh when she was 29 years old in 2013.
Not only has Sophie gone viral multiple times, but she has worked with various famous artists and groups. Some Sophie songs that have gone viral include Lemonade, Faceshopping, Immaterial, and some of her works with other artists, like Vroom Vroom by Charli XCX, Yeah Right by Vince Staples, 24HRS by ITZY, and more. Sophie’s music was completely different from regular pop on the radio, she helped popularize hyper-pop along with A.G. Cook. Even years later, her influence is still heard and seen in music today.
“She’s [Sophie] just been so creative that people feel comfortable with just experimenting with their music more,” Colin Mclaughlin, a junior Vocal major said.
Aside from being a great producer, she was a trans activist, she publicly came out as a transgender woman in 2017. She inspired multiple trans people to live their truth and keep going. She’s mainly known across the LGBTQ+ community for this reason, she was and still is a huge deal, which is why her death came as a shock to everyone. She was only 34 years old on January 30th, 2021 when she fell from a rooftop attempting to get a better look of the moon.
Sophie’s posthumous album Sophie was released on September 27th, 2024. The album includes songs she had been working on before she passed, finished by her brother Ben Long. He used inspiration from both her studio songs and the music she made live at her shows and parties. This being her final album, it’s incredibly bittersweet, and fans are still happy they’re getting new music but also sad knowing there won’t be a next one.
“I am really excited for the album, I’m grateful that her family decided to finish it and put it out for the fans,” said Mclaughlin.
Though she is gone, her songs, words, and influence will be around forever, or in the words of Charli XCX, “Your sounds, your words, live on, endless,” in her song So I written about and for Sophie, who will be missed not just for her creative mind but for who she was as a person.
