piri (singer)

piri at Radio 1 Big Weekend

McBurnie maintains an OnlyFans account; she told The Daily Mirror in April 2021 that she set it up ten months earlier whilst in her third year of university in response to being £2,000 short on her £5,000-per-year rent, being only entitled to the smallest amount of Student Finance possible, her parents not having disposable income they could lend, running out of overdraft, owing two people £200, and being barely able to buy food despite having spent the previous summer working at Asda. She also told the publication that "the first month was very disheartening because it didn’t take off immediately[; a] lot of people quit but I stuck with it and it was the best decision I have ever made", and that her parents were initially against the idea until they discovered how much money she was making on the platform.[3] She told The Times in November 2022 that she experienced less backlash than she was expecting, and that "my belief is that if I'm not ashamed of it, [people] can't really hold it against me. If I tried to hide it, people could use it against me. […] Nudity shouldn't be a taboo. We've always had nudity in our culture — look at classical statues. It's not inherently immoral to be naked. I'm not doing anything wrong." As of that article, her account had "about 1,000 to 2,000 fans paying about $12 a month", which minus fees meant she made "between $10,000 and $20,000 a month", which she was able to use to fund her music career, move to north London, and buy a computer and microphone.[5]

In 2021, McBurnie released a single, "it's a match", with Tommy Villiers,[17] which has been described as "disco-infused".[18] Later that year, they formed the band piri & tommy, under which name they were signed variously to EMI[19] and Polydor Records,[20] and released five singles ("soft spot",[11] "beachin",[21] "words",[22] "on & on",[23] and "unlock it"[24]) and a mixtape, froge.mp3[25] (pronounced frogue);[26] froge.mp3 featured "soft spot", "beachin", "words", and "on & on",[25] the last of which charted at No. 99 on the UK Singles Chart,[27] while "unlock it" was a cover of "Unlock It", the Charli XCX, Kim Petras and Jay Park song[24] from Charli XCX's 2017 mixtape Pop 2.[28]

piri on stage at Scala

McBurnie, Venbee and PinkPantheress were described in November 2022 by NME as "leading the new British drum 'n' bass scene".[29] She signed a solo record deal in September 2022 with Warner Chappell Music.[30]

In January 2023 it was reported that McBurnie and Villiers had broken up, but that "music in the bank" would still be released, and that they would continue to work together.[31] However, on 12 January, McBurnie later announced via TikTok that for subsequent single releases, they would revert to being credited as separate artists, as they were with "it's a match",[32] and two days later she posted another video on the site to say that they had unfollowed and blocked each other on social media after attempting to perform a post-breakup gig together and reducing themselves to tears in the process.[33]

McBurnie released a single on 20 January 2023, "Feel It", which has been described as "UK garage-oriented", and was credited to "MJ Cole ft. piri & Tommy Villiers";[34] MJ Cole had previously remixed "soft spot",[35] after she & Villiers sent a long list of suggested artists to their label, including bigger artists such as Cole, and were not expecting him to respond.[11] The single was promoted with a remix competition in conjunction with Audius.co,[36] which was won by BASSBOYS.[37]

On 17 February 2023, McBurnie released a further single, "updown", which was credited to "piri & Tommy Villiers",[17] which became BBC Radio 1's Hottest Record for that week; she told Danny Howard's Radio 1 Dance Party that she had written it about a year earlier, and that it had a "really fast […] four-to-the-floor beat".[38] The song was written about sex;[39] she replied to one of the comments on a 3 February 2023 TikTok video announcing the release to say that the song was specifically written about the cowgirl sex position.[40] The song features a "Crazy Frog drop" at the end; she told Capital Dance upon its release that Villiers had added it during preparation for piri & tommy live sets, as he wanted it to "pop off extra hard[, …] then we loved it so much we kept it in the full thing".[41]

Reviewing a performance of one of their live sets, LeftLion described updown as a record where "the pair play around with stylistic auto tune" and complimented McBurnie's "exploration of her 'hyperpop era'".[42] In a review of the single when it came out, UDiscover Music described the song as a "thrilling left turn" and a "dizzying […] tongue-in-cheek blast of hyperpop, rave, and female empowerment",[43] while Onestowatch.com described it as a "raunchy hyperpop anthem" and an "electrifying declaration for anyone who has felt empowered by having someone at their mercy with the mere witness of their silhouette"[39] and The Official Charts Company described the song as "Charli XCX-esque".[44] She was listed on the line-up for the May 2023 edition of the Ashton Court festival Love Saves the Day.[45]

piri on stage at Glastonbury

Descriptions of McBurnie's voice have ranged from "dreamy"[5] to "sugar sweet"[46] to "whispery"[47] to "porcelain".[48] She has credited Tommy Villiers with helping her realise what she was capable of;[15] she told DIY in September 2022 that she "didn’t really ever intend to be a musician. I always played guitar, but I didn’t really see any way to make actual music. It seemed like, super impossible. I would always just write songs, [but it was] very much a hobby".[18]

McBurnie co-wrote piri & tommy's entire froge.mp3 mixtape with Villiers.[49] She told Notion Magazine in March 2022 that she usually writes about "whatever [she's] feeling at that exact time", and that "a lot of our songs kind of act like a snapshot of how life/ our relationship was at the time of the writing which is fun".[19] It took until "soft spot" was released for her to be able to take her songwriting seriously, due to perceived deficiencies in her guitar playing abilities;[50] she told DIY in September 2022 that she showed Villiers one of her ideas after writing "a million different ideas" on GarageBand, and that she was so apprehensive to do so on account of Villiers being a "proper musician" and her not considering herself a musician, that she had to leave the room while he listened to them.[18] The first song she and Villiers wrote together was "sunlight", the last track on froge.mp3.[50]

She told 1883 in September 2021 that she "grew up in a house with an R&B and hip-hop mum and a rock'n'roll dad", that her favourite artist growing up was the Arctic Monkeys, and that her then-current "taste [was] much more based on good vibes and dance music, artists like Disclosure, MJ Cole and of course PinkPantheress".[15] In an interview with Reform Radio the following month, she mentioned that she got into dance music after being introduced to it at university.[7] She has stated that her ideal collaborations are with Disclosure and Charli XCX,[38] and that she would like to have her album reviewed by Anthony Fantano.[50]

According to The Times in November 2022, she had "over 419,000 followers" on TikTok;[5] she told 1883 in September 2021 that she considered it "the best place as a small creator to get yourself out to people", but that she had had her account banned three times due to "the banning issue[…]; TikToks are constantly taken down despite them completely adhering to the community guidelines and users are being banned if this happens to them multiple times".[15] She told Vice in May 2022 that "I feel like I make more TikToks than the label could ever ask for," and used the article to criticise the misogyny she receives in comment sections, saying that "Half the things I post, I get hate for. And I know that if a guy posted this, even if Tommy did rather than me, he would get overwhelming love. […] Girls get hate just for existing."[51]

McBurnie is noted for her readiness in sharing her personal life with her followers to a greater extent than other pop stars of previous generations.[5] She told Sam Nahirny's "The Helping Musicians Podcast" in January 2023 that she tries "not to hold back" and to "post online just as you would talk to a friend, because that is who you are, ultimately" and that authenticity was important to her, on the grounds that "there's nothing worse than trying to be someone you're not, and I think people can tell that, from a long way. […] If people grow to like you for who you are, then, you know, you don't have to try and be anyone anyway, so that's the best way to go about it".[14] Her openness extends to the way she speaks to live audiences, with a September 2022 Brighton & Hove News review enjoying "the candid way [piri] spoke to the audience", and noting that when "she introduced songs she'd be upfront about what they were about, ranging from disgusting exes to finding love and comfort in a person effortlessly".[52]

A crocheted frog hat is a staple of her signature look; she told DORK in November 2022 that when she and Villiers met, she was in a phase of drawing frogs and toads, and they started calling each other 'froge'[50] (pronounced frogue)[26] as a nickname. Her amphibian motif extended into the band's "on & on" video, which featured them digesting a psychedelic frog.[50]