Ears Wide Open: COQUI

Kevin Bronson on August 27th, 2019

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With his new solo project COQUÍ, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Samuel Jacob Lopez Jr. has taken a step back from the caffeinated electro-pop he made in Tapioca & the Flea (and, later, Little Wolves).

His new work takes hip-hop, Latin and R&B influences and puts them in a pop context, and while that’s a common formula through out modern music, COQUÍ is making it pop. With little more than an acoustic guitar, savvy production and his winning vocals, he finds a deep groove on the new single “The Pain,” released last week. It’s the follow-up to “Rewind,” the sleek and deeply personal tune he released earlier this year.

“This song was inspired the passing of my abuela last year,” he said of “Rewind.” At the time, I was over 5,000 miles away on tour in Europe. I decided to write a song about my family as a lullaby to help ease the pain. The first line I wrote was ‘When the weight of the world seems to pull you behind / Just stop, take a breath and rewind.’ These were actually the words of my late grandmother. I wrote this song a few weeks before she passed away so it holds a very special place in my heart.”

Lopez Jr., whose father was a club DJ in Brookyn and whose mother was a Puerto Rican salsa dancer from Philadelphia, has worked in the studio with artists such as Young The Giant and Crystal Castles, as well as touring as an Ableton tech with 30 Seconds To Mars. There’s more COQUÍ music on the way later this year.

||| Stream: “The Pain,” “Asleep Again” and “Rewind”