The Animal Talk kingdom just expanded. The label, founded by dance duo Sofi Tukker in 2018, now encompasses a management company that’s entered a partnership with Palm Tree Management. Sofi Tukker is the first act signed under the agreement.
Along with being a label and management company, Animal Talk is now also an artist collective focused on hosting future Animal Talk events and festivals, creating branded clothing capsules, developing Animal Talk as a lifestyle brand, securing strategic partnerships and more. Animal Talk is being run by Bella Tamis, Palm Tree’s Myles Shear and Mike Hoerner and Sofi Tukker’s Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern.
Animal Talk and Palm Tree Management will work together on management for Sofi Tukker while expanding the brand by signing artists, throwing events and more, effectively creating a management deal that allows Sofi Tukker to grow its vision for Animal Talk.
“We’re so excited to announce our new management company, launching together with Myles Shear, Mike Hoerner and Bella Tamis,” Sofi Tukker tells Billboard in a statement. “We originally started Animal Talk as a label and a party many years ago. We launched LP Giobbi’s career, and threw some insane parties, but we put it on the back burner until now, because we didn’t have the bandwidth to do everything we wanted with it.”
Sofi Tukker continues that the idea for Animal Talk originally came from the Mary Oliver poem “Wild Geese,” which also inspired its debut EP, Soft Animals. “It has been a mantra for us since the very beginning,” the duo’s statement adds. “‘You do not have to be good… You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.’ We’ve been inspired watching what Myles has built with Palm Tree over the years. His entrepreneurial energy is infectious and we are so excited to start building out the Animal Talk world with him and Bella. We’ve learned so much over the past ten years of being artists with amazing people by our side, and feel really grateful to get to pay it forward. We’re excited to build a roster of hardworking, boundary pushing artists who want to build something special with us and make people dance all over the world.”
Shear, the co-founder of Palm Tree Management and Kygo‘s longtime manager, adds that he’s “really excited to be working with such talented artists like Sofi Tukker; they’re once in a generation talent. This partnership is unique and we have built a special team around this.”
“We couldn’t be more excited about working with Sofi Tukker,” adds Hoerner. “They’re incredibly talented artists and even better people who share an entrepreneurial mindset.”
Before partnering with Palm Tree Management and Animal Talk on the company, Tamis spent five-plus years with The Shalizi Group and its client Marshmello. She tells Billboard that “Sofi Tukker has been a driving force in dance music for some time, and it’s been incredible building out Animal Talk alongside them. They have a strong vision for working with like-minded artists’ brands, and we’re excited to keep growing it out.”
“We are excited to sign artists who push boundaries and create lanes that didn’t exist before them,” Sofi Tukker adds. “The goal for the company is to be a place for artists to thrive with a focus on strategy and staying authentic. It will be more than a management company, we have plans for fashion collaborations, parties and festivals in the future. “
