Featured Photo Credit: Anna Azarov
On the latest episode of ECHO – The Podcast we chatted with Paris-based Pop artist SKANDRA.
If you have scrolled through TikTok lately, you may have come across a viral video from creator Ylane Duparc. In the video, Duparc confesses that he “really f*cked up.” He explains that he and his wife, Alexandra Duparc aka SKANDRA blew through their life savings to fulfill her artistic dreams of producing a solo album and cinematic video for her single, “Rivers.” He encourages viewers to stream the song to help fulfill his wife’s aspiration in the seamlessly looped video.
We chatted with SKANDRA about the viral TikTok, her music and her self-established non-profit, Treehouse.
Excerpt from the podcast:
When your husband posted the TikTok, do you expect it to get the response that it did?
He had the idea. He was like we are going to get people to get the counter up. In my head, as an artist, I’m like that’s just a video game – is that real appreciation for the art? He just does things and I really respect him for that. I’m a little bit pickier about how I present myself. He was like screw it let’s just do it. The first night I think the song was at 750 streams on Spotify. That night, we were on TikTok live until 2 or three in the morning. We had gotten up to 1500 streams and I was like wow this is so cool. I was like let’s go to bed, this is great. I woke up at like six in the morning and I really contemplated like do I look at my phone or do I check it? Do I care? Do I go back to sleep? Of course I gave in and it was like at 60,000 streams and I was like woah what is happening? I was in such disbelief. So no, we had no idea. He hoped that it would work. It’s funny, I don’t tend to be a pessimist, like who’s going to care about this. I didn’t expect that. It was really humbling and really incredible to watch the amount of support from that community and it made me respect TikTok as a community because they pull things like that all the time and that is so powerful. It’s an avenue for a generation to do things like that for people.
What inspired you to write “Rivers”?
I was at the end of a very … toxic relationship. I don’t know what else to call it. I felt like I really needed to admit that it was toxic to myself even if I remained in it for longer than I should have. There was just something about that you could be so in love with someone and forgive them for so many things, but also admit that you’re the one agreeing to remain there. I just wanted to paint my thought process of that and admit that. Actually, the chorus lyrics “Where these rivers go, I fear we’re better off dead, And if we don’t knowLet’s learn with the current” – those words were actually part of a political poem that I had written earlier that year. They were just the perfect lyrics for the rest of the song and just migrated over to it. It’s about admitting that to myself.