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If you’re familiar with New York City band Cafuné’s 2019 hit “Tek It,” you’ve probably heard a version that isn’t the original. One version of the video, posted to YouTube and viewed more than 600,000 times, is a ten-minute loop with a thirty-second chorus—the soaring line, “I look at the moon / Let it rule my mood.” Hundreds of people have shared their experiences in the comments, noting that they can’t stop listening. Another video speeds up the chorus, squeezing the loops even further into the allotted ten minutes—it’s also viewed in the hundreds of thousands. There are also longer versions that are slowed down and reverberated. These unofficial reworkings, uploaded by regular accounts, form a kind of Satie-esque audio experiment, turning the song into an abstract, almost mechanical form. Such phenomena illustrate the flexibility of modern culture in the age of user-generated content. With easy access to online tools with augmented reality and artificial intelligence, any work is no longer immutable — virtually anyone can adapt a track, video, text, or image for the internet. Audiences now shape not only the perception, but also the sound and version of the work, which can be frustrating for creators. “It’s not McDonald’s,” said Noah Yu, a member of Cafuné, on a recent video call.
Yu and his duo partner, Sedona Schat, met while attending NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recording Arts, where they founded Cafuné in 2014 as a class project. (They were in a group with Maggie Rogers, who pitched the future viral hit “Alaska” to producer Pharrell Williams there.) Yu wears round, wire-framed glasses and slicks her hair back; Schat describes herself as a tomboy and has a pixie cut. Their style is ’90s-inspired, with hints of teen cartoon characters. They chose the name “Cafuné” from a list of hard-to-translate, nostalgic expressions: in Brazilian Portuguese, the word means to gently touch a loved one’s hair. After graduating, Yu wrote for Pitchfork, and Schat worked in the food service industry. Their debut album, Running, was self-produced and released in the midst of the 2021 pandemic. It initially gained popularity within the New York indie scene. But in 2022, they noticed that the album’s track “Tek It” was increasingly appearing in Shazam searches. “There’s something weird about that,” Yu recalled. The popularity came from TikTok, although the musicians themselves barely used the platform. Someone posted a speeded-up version of “Tek It” in an anime compilation, which was soon shared en masse by other users. (Speeded-up tracks are part of an internet genre known as “nightcore.”) Although the song wasn’t written specifically for TikTok, its Auto-Tuned vocals, which conveyed a wistful, slightly nostalgic feeling, struck a strong emotional chord with audiences. “How popular you are is often not about effort — it’s all about the algorithm,” Shat said. “It's like a random-winning slot machine.”
“Tek It” became one of the key tunes that symbolized the rise of TikTok in the United States. Taking advantage of this success, Cafuné signed a deal with major label Elektra. “Everyone who goes viral faces a new challenge — not to lose the momentum,” Yu said. The group launched social media, began touring, and released a new EP. They also shared an official, sped-up version of “Tek It,” replicating the version most requested by fans. Together, the original and its variations have amassed over a billion streams on Spotify — a notable achievement. But the rise was temporary. In 2024, amid a restructuring of the music industry, Cafuné terminated their contract with Elektra. “It turned out that even that kind of profit didn’t convince them of our value,” Yu added. After leaving the label, the duo decided to try their hand at being a more traditional act: making music without pressure, relying on their inner creative impulses. They have a new album ready to be released under their own label, Aurelians Club, and have a distribution deal with SoundOn, a music platform owned by TikTok. Shat quipped, “It’s interesting that TikTok has offered us the best deal out of all of them.” According to Yu, every artist is now forced to play the role of content creator, “whether they like it or not.” “It feels like we’ve all become soldiers in the army of platforms.”
Cafuné’s new album, Bite Reality, will be released on September 12. It continues the electro-acoustic direction of the previous release, Running, which was influenced by emo, shoegaze, and 90s Japanese rock. However, this release is distinguished by a more complex instrumental palette and sophisticated lyrical decisions, perhaps a result of the viral success they experienced. One of the autobiographical tracks, In My Pocket, contains the words: “I feel the freedom to make mistakes in your presence.” Cafuné’s characteristic catchy melodies remain, but without new viral outbreaks, their music may get lost among independent artists who express more vividly individuality, such as Mk.gee, MJ Lenderman, Clairo. Collectives that emphasize the idea of a team identity are experiencing a decline in attention. One of the central themes of the new album is the boredom caused by life online. Lead single “e-Asphyxiation” is an emotional response to the pressure of self-exposure that social media imposes. “Gotta keep the engagement high / Maybe I won’t even try / Who are all these people?” Shat sings over aggressive guitar and a powerful drum beat from Yu. She shares, “This whole thing of showing how you spend your evenings, being able to present your looks and movements in front of the camera, it’s just not compatible with my self-image.” In the studio, they posted a note that read “high tech, low life” — a reference to the cyberpunk trope expressed by writer Bruce Sterling in describing a genre that also includes William Gibson. For Cafuné, the phrase reflects the fragile human emotions that survive despite the alienation of the digital environment. Bite Reality insists that despite all the technology, we still experience loneliness, broken hopes, unrequited love, and wonder how to grow up – or stay young.
Do independent musicians have a chance to survive without, as Shat puts it, “giving their soul to the internet”? Cafuné’s story speaks to a turning point in the connection between artist and audience. “How much power does the listener actually have?” Yu asked. “It seems like a lot.” Many artists are tailoring their work to the demands of platforms. In 2024, pop singer Sabrina Carpenter released an EP with six versions of her hit “Espresso,” including a “Double Shot Version” that sped up the track — similar to how Cafuné adapted “Tek It” after the nightcore versions of “Espresso” went viral on YouTube. Before the release of “Bite Reality,” Cafuné actively posted videos on TikTok: from the studio, with dances, demonstrating lip-syncing to future songs. While the duo wanted to focus on live performance and music, social media remains the most effective way to connect with fans — most of whom first became known through TikTok. Yoo recalled a joke he made long before viral fame, at a Pitchfork panel that drew laughter at the time: “For the next generation, memes are going to be more cultural than music itself.” It’s hard to become a meme. But it can be even harder not to become one. ♦
Sourse: newyorker.com
