A Sisterly Duo Pushing The Boundaries Of Sound

When Coco & Breezy step behind the decks, it’s more than just a set. It’s a venture into their world, one that’s focused on community, joy and the history of dance music.

The dynamic duo is known for bringing soulful, uplifting and groovy beats to its music and performances. However, they captivate audiences in ways few can do. Their sets and records go beyond tunes that make you want to sing, beyond rhythms that induce dancing and beyond sounds made for the club. For the tastemakers, it’s about intention—an intention that is centered around spiritual growth, manifestation, confidence and intuition. Once you’re part of Coco & Breezy’s dimension, you don’t want to leave.

The Afro-Latina sisters are more than deejays and producers. They’re vibe curators, something few have the power to do. With their beats that produce sensations of love and positivity, their stunning soundscapes that spark something deep within you and their approachable style, fans can find comfort and community on the dancefloor. Indeed, Coco & Breezy are changing the game by continuously pushing the boundaries of sound, working to showcase what may be next in dance music, while also honoring the history of the scene, which is founded by the Black, Brown and queer communities.

The sound designers boast an impressive resume to date as they have created chart-topping hits and graced the stages of famed festivals—including Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) Las Vegas, Lightning In A Bottle and Coachella—and supported top-tier talent, such as MK, Fatboy Slim, Thundercat, Chromeo, Channel Tres and Sofi Tukker. Now, the powerhouse twins are taking center stage with their first headline tour, Free Your Soul. With anthemic releases such as “Just Say,” “Off My Mind” and “There is a Light,” their tour is sure to get ravers stomping around on the dancefloor.

Coco & Breezy are more than sonic storytellers as they are also entrepreneurs. The trailblazers shook the fashion world with their eyewear brand, which is by the same name as their project. The couture eyewear line has even been worn by the likes of Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and the late Prince, proving that Coco & Breezy are multifaceted creatives. The fashion vanguards’ illustrious careers also feature notable previous accomplishments, including performing at the Instagram Met Gala Afterparty and having brand partnerships with DKNY, YSL, NBA 2k and H&M.

Here, Coco & Breezy share with Forbes their two recently released singles, “I Am Free” and “Manifest,” their new lower price point eyewear collection, Besties, their outlook on life, being Black women in the entrepreneurial world, their commitment to honoring the history of dance music and more.

Lisa Kocay: Can you describe your sound in three words?

Coco & Breezy: “Soulful, groovy and intentional.”

Kocay: You have a distinct sound and image. What is the motivation behind pushing this sound and image?

Coco & Breezy: “I think the motivation behind pushing the sound and image is to create community and create healing through music. I think our biggest thing when it comes to the image is really about being true to who we are. And when it comes to the sound, it’s being able to tell our story through our music, where people can actually relate to it. Whether it’s the words and the lyrics that we choose or the groove, they can feel it in their hearts and their souls.”

Kocay: What do you try to cultivate through your music and deejaying?

Coco & Breezy: “The big part for us is to bring back the happiness of how music started. And, of course, it started with Black and Brown people. So if we’re able to be that representation to bring more of our people to these festivals who usually wouldn’t go, we’re so happy to be that. I think it’s so important because a lot of our own friends, they’re like, ‘I don’t listen to that electronic or like house music. But when I heard your music, I fell in love.’ So we’ve been that stepping stool to the people who have strayed away from house music because of the faces that currently are shown in pop culture at the moment. And now they know when they come to our shows, they’re like, ‘Hold on, maybe I do like this type of music.’ And also, too, they feel like it’s a community, and they see representation.

“I think something, too, that’s important is like, even at our shows, a lot of people end up making new friendships and relationships because they get to dance together. And that’s something that always warms my heart as well—that there’s truly a community aspect of it. I think that’s how, for us, when it comes to our shows, it’s more than just like drinking and raving. It’s also, again, creating community and love with these strangers all through music.

“The cool part about what we’re doing, the fun part about what we’re doing, is that we’re bringing in the classic sounds but then also giving them the Coco & Breezy new sound with it. So we’re continuing to keep that classic inspiration as we’re growing our own sound.”

Kocay: In addition to being deejays and producers, you’re also vibe creators. What is the vibe that you look to curate?

Coco & Breezy: “I think for us, we want to create a safe space. Before all of our shows, we like to say a prayer, and we call on our ancestors to allow us to have an open heart, to be magnets and to bring people in who need healing through music. That’s a prayer that we say before every single show. And we allow ourselves to channel and be able to give the audience exactly what they need. It’s not about us, but it’s really about giving the people who came to this show exactly what they needed. Whether it’s the music that we choose, the energy that we’re putting out or the love that we’re putting out, it’s really a spiritual experience. One thing that’s always affirming is when people reach out and they say, ‘Hey, that was a spiritual experience,’ without us telling them that. So that means that they felt all the intentions that we put out before we did the show. That’s always affirming for us.”

Kocay: Can you talk about the inspiration for your track “I Am Free”?

Coco & Breezy: “We were at Coachella, and this was last year. [We] saw Bad Bunny perform, and he had an intro where he was telling his story in Spanish. It was very ambient music, but he was telling his story. [We] couldn’t really understand it because [our] Spanish isn’t the best, but [we] felt it because the emotion in his voice really inspired [us]. And [we were] like, ‘Hold on, we need to use our voices more and tell our story because when he’s singing, you feel it.’ But when he was actually talking, [we] felt what he was saying, even though [we] didn’t understand the language. We were like, ‘We need to have a fire intro where we tell a story.’ So the song started actually with us creating an intro, and we made an intro when we were on a tour with with Channel Tres.”

Kocay: What was it like using only your vocals for the first time?

Coco & Breezy: “The inspiration with that intro was us saying words that were into the song that we were playing. Then also, just like writing, journaling and talking about how we were free. So one day, we were all like, ‘Hold on. That intro could actually be a song with our voices on it.’ We always put inches and like little sprinkles of our voices on our songs, but not in a million years did [we] think that we were going to do a whole song with our voices. I think the bigger thing, too, is a testament to where we are in life. We finally feel like we freed ourselves.

“With us being entrepreneurs and also us being Black women in dance music, there was a point in time [where], as much as we said that we didn’t like to hear what people thought, there was still this internal feeling where we did care, and we felt like we kind of almost had to conform. Now, we’re in a place in our lives and our careers where we actually feel so free to be ourselves, and we don’t have to conform. We are the lights. We are the ones that are shifting culture. So it’s exciting that [we] put a song out where actually it’s part of our life in real-time.”

Kocay: That’s so cool that y’all decided to use just your vocals for the first time. I can imagine that was really rewarding.

Coco & Breezy: “Whenever my writer friends talk to me, they’re like, ‘Oh, that’s a bar. Let me write that down.’ So we’re like, ‘Hold on. We could be using our own bars and actually using our voices.’ We write out our own songs, but with our own voices is different actually—using our own vocals for real, saying these affirmations in a song that we actually say to ourselves. So [we] think that when it comes to empowerment and being able to guide people, [we] only like to give people the advice that [we] actually use within [our] everyday life. So all the affirmations that are in the ‘I Am Free’ song, it is our way of life. It is something that we’ve been telling ourselves for the last 10 years. [We’re] excited to share it with the world through a song and through music.”

Kocay: Can you talk more about how this relates to your spiritual growth, specifically within and through house music?

Coco & Breezy: “So [in 2022], before we started touring, we had this intuitive feeling [from] our higher selves that told us that something big was going to happen and a shift was going to happen. We actually went to Costa Rica for three weeks, and it was a spontaneous move. It was literally January 1st, and we told our team, our friends, we’re like, ‘You guys, we’re going to leave and go to Costa Rica for three weeks. We think we need this.’ This is [2022]. We had no shows booked like that. We just knew that something big [was] going to pop off [in 2022].

So we spent those three weeks just exploring ourselves. We stayed off the grid. We stayed in the house for a week with no hot water, no AC, no Wi-Fi, no phone service. The crazy part was that when we came out of that trip after having that time for ourselves for three weeks, we did 90 shows in [2022]. It was wild because we listened to our intuitions, and we were like, ‘That was literally the last time we ever had three weeks to ourselves, and our music started popping off.’ [We] think it’s so important for people to know when to listen to your intuition and know when it’s time. [We’re] so happy that we took those three weeks to ground ourselves because if we didn’t take that trip, we probably wouldn’t be as grounded. Our careers are shifting and growing and changing. But those three weeks were a wide awakening for us, and it allowed us to receive and understand what success truly means.

“We don’t do anything that doesn’t feel comfortable to our hearts and our souls. We don’t want to be a part of this rat race that we’re conditioned to be in. We feel like if we are living our purpose, then, of course, things may be a little stressful. Things may get hard, but we’ll never get to a point where we’re chasing a rat race if we’re actually freeing ourselves, understanding who we are, understanding what opportunities are actually meant for us and not having to chase what the blueprint is. We’re actually creating our own blueprint. We’ve been creating our own blueprint since we were like 16 years old. So just know, never change that, no matter who comes around, because it’s always worked for us.”

Kocay: Can you discuss the inspiration for “Manifest,” which dropped on March 1st?

Coco & Breezy: “‘Manifest’ breaks the mold of traditional guided meditation songs by infusing house music-influenced grooves alongside soothing healing instruments and debuting our own vocals. It’s a unique blend that elevates the experience, guiding you to reprogram your mind and embrace the power of manifestation. With each beat and melody, it reminds you that what’s meant for you will effortlessly find its way. It’s not just music—it’s a transformative journey of self-discovery and empowerment.”

Kocay: You’re going to have your first headline tour, Free Your Soul, which is super exciting. What will the shows be like?

Coco & Breezy: “We’re going to be playing a lot of our own music [and] a lot of unreleased songs. We’ll be playing fresh edits. It’s going to be a club tour, and [we’re] just excited to bring people into our world 100%. We usually always do, but it’s exciting that we finally get to do a whole bunch of back-to-back headline shows because, of course, when you’re opening and support, you can go a 1,000%, but there’s also an art to being support for someone else. So now we can go like 2,000 and go extra hard. It’s going to be intentional.

[We] think what [we’re] most excited about, too, is that the people who are going to come [will] have the experience of coming to our first headline tour before, like in years, when we start doing like Madison Square Garden type of vibes. The same people would be like, ‘I remember when I came to Coco & Breezy’s first headline club headline tour.’ To be able to share that experience with it being our first and their first experience, it’s going to be very intimate.”

Kocay: I’m manifesting for you that Madison Square Garden happens. It’s going to come your way. I believe it.

Can you talk about your new eyewear collection, Besties?

Coco & Breezy: “This is going to be our lower price point collection. The glasses are $99. We were trying to figure out how to create something for our music fans because what we realized is that the people that buy our eyewear, they’re a specific customer that [spend] almost $300 on glasses. But there are some music fans [who] want to peek at what we do, but they can’t afford our very high-end glasses. So we said, ‘How do we create a capsule collection that is accessible?’ So these glasses will be $99, and the fun part is that there are going to be small drops, but for each style it’ll always come with two different colorways. One colorway will be the Coco frame, and the other colorway will be the Breezy frame. And so on the glasses, it’ll say like, Breezy by CB or Cocoa by CB, so people can also get their personal experience with the both of us through the frames as well.”

Kocay: That’s so cute. I love that, and I love the name of it.

Coco & Breezy: “Thank you. There’ll also be some scarves with [our] artwork on there, [which are] included in this collection and sub-line.”

Kocay: So while you used to feel pressured to fit in and seek approval from others in the industry, you now have this new awesome outlook that’s focused on confidence, intuition, living your life’s purpose and doing what you want regardless of what others say. Can you further discuss this?

Coco & Breezy: “There was a point in our lives when we first started in the entrepreneur world, and we’d be hanging out with all of our other entrepreneur friends who were in tech and [would] wear suits, and we’d be having our all black and leather on. And we felt like we had to seek approval. Even in the entrepreneur life, [we] think it’s glorified to not have a life, not enjoy life and not have a healthy balance.

“So [we] think that we also had to do a lot of unlearning to understand to be an entrepreneur and to actually be happy in this life. The blueprint is not to be unhappy and be working all these hours doing something that you don’t love. The real blueprint is to actually go off your own life’s purpose, and that’s what we figured out. We’re like, ‘Oh wait, this is actually way more enjoyable if we’re doing exactly what we love.’ And [we] would question [ourselves] because [we] would see other people say like, ‘Oh, I’m crying because I’ve been in the office for like 20 hours.’ But they glorified it, and they hated what they were doing. [We] thought [we were] doing something wrong because [we were] happy and [we] enjoyed what [we] did, so [we] had to unlearn a lot of the unhealthy habits that were taught to us in the media on what an entrepreneur looks like.

“Then once we got into the music industry, there was a point where, one: being women, two: being like Black women, three: being stylish, we felt like we couldn’t fully express our style because people wouldn’t think that we were credible. So we actually had to spend like the first year or two not really expressing our fashion style and not expressing our dance moves because we’re like, ‘We need people to know that we are actually really good technical deejays, and [we] can claim that [we] feel very confident with how we deejay.’

“Even with the music that we play, what we realized is when we play certain festivals and shows, the other deejays might be playing crazy EDM, crazy bass music. And then we come in, and we’re like, ‘We’re about to play this soulful house set.’ But guess what? People didn’t know they needed it. And [we] think that sometimes deejays are afraid to do something different, and they think they have to play what everyone else is playing. But you don’t. If you’re really good at what you do, you can just do you, and that’s what we figured out.

“[We] think people in the eyewear industry and [those who are] founders didn’t understand us being musicians, deejays and producers, [so] people in the music industry didn’t understand us being entrepreneurs. [We] have a theory that there’s only a small percentage of people in this world who are blessed and gifted with being multifaceted, being multi-talented and [be] able to actually approach multiple things and be great at them. So [we] had to learn how to also understand that if that person didn’t get that blessing and they only know how to do one thing, of course they’re not going to understand it because they can’t picture themselves doing it. [We] had to learn how to gain the confidence to say [we’re] the ones who got that blessing who can actually do multiple things. [We] used to tear [ourselves] down, be embarrassed to tell people that [we’re] founders of an IRA company and a founder of a real estate company, but also musicians. So it took time to understand not everyone has that talent.

“What we realized the other day, we were talking to a friend [who is] very intuitive. He knew that [we] had a point in our lives where we used to seek approval, and he said, ‘You don’t have to do that this whole time.’ It’s like we shifted the narrative in our minds. And when [we] used to walk into a room, [we] used to feel like [we] had to shift approval from all these powerful people, when really [we] were the lights and [we] didn’t see that [ourselves].

“So once [we] realized [we] can just walk in the room and just be [ourselves], it changed everything. Now we feel so free. And [we] think the bigger part with that, too, understanding us being free and being confident in where we are in our own careers, that also taught us to not be gatekeepers. [We] think that being a gatekeeper will stop your blessings. And when it came to the IRA industry, there aren’t any schools where you can learn how to create eyewear. It was a really big conversation where some people were a little upset that we were sharing knowledge with other Black and Brown people about how to create their own eyewear and supply chain because it’s very taboo to share that information. But we didn’t want to be gatekeepers.

“Then, when it comes to the music industry, we have a couple of friends who are women, who are Black women, who we share our knowledge with because, again, it’s important to not be a gatekeeper. It’s important to know that even if you are the first to do something, we don’t ever want to be the only ones doing something because if we are advocating for more Black and Brown people to be in these spaces, [we] feel [we] have a fear where [we] don’t want [our] blessings to be stopped over here [from] trying to be a gatekeeper. So that’s something that we’ll never do, be gatekeepers, so that we can actually create space for the things that we’re advocating for.”

Kocay: What’s the biggest hurdle you faced in life, and how did you overcome it?

Coco & Breezy: “The biggest hurdle for us is we had to financially take care of our father since we were like 16 years old or 15. It was challenging. He’s no longer with us, his spirit is with us, but he got sick when we were in middle school, and I think that’s why we work so hard now because we got our first jobs when we were 16. And then, when we decided to move to New York at 19 with $500 and start our company, we still had to figure out how are we still going to help pay our dad’s bills, and we didn’t have family to get money from.

“We had to really figure it out. And so [we] think it was our biggest challenge in life, but it made us the women who we are today in regards to how we work in our work ethic and also learning how to work smarter and harder as well. [We] think that was the biggest hurdle because our whole lives, we were building our dreams, and our childhood got taken away from us. Now, we’re 33-year-old women, [so we] think now it’s important to really tap into our inner child because [in] our childhood, we [had] adult responsibilities as children. We didn’t have a childhood. We didn’t go to prom. We didn’t go to homecoming. We were taking people’s hours at work. [We] used to love it when homecoming and prom were coming. [We were] like, ‘Whose hours can I take?’

“So now, we’re both at a point in our thirties where we’re intentionally making sure that we’re building our careers, and our careers are growing so much. We’re also saying, ‘Look, this is non-negotiable, and we need to take time for ourselves.’ Because we’ve given our full lives since we were kids to working and building, and now we’re realizing what is our purpose, for real, and how do we make sure we take time for ourselves. So we’re actually going to Nigeria for the first time. We’re going to Nigeria next week [they said at the time of this interview, which was December 14th, 2023], and [we’re] so excited because, again, with us working so much, we never carve out time for vacations. [We’re] excited for us to finally tap in and go to the motherland.

“Something [we’re] really grateful for is that our team understands that as well. Our manager, Johnny, he knows when we need to take a little bit of space for ourselves. It’s not like no one’s trying to force us to do anything, and [we] feel so grateful because sometimes you could have teams that are money hungry, and they [think] that we are a machine and we are building a big business as artists, but we’re also humans. [We] feel so grateful that everyone knows that we’re all humans. We love our meditations. We love our spa days. We love our couple [of] day vacations, and that’s something we didn’t have. Now that [we] have the means to do it, [we’re] living [our] lives.”

Kocay: That’s so great. I’m so sorry that you had to deal with all that in your childhood, but I’m really happy that now you’re at a point where you can take the time you need. It’s so great that you have a team around you that understands that.

You want to inspire others to follow their dreams and passions and not be afraid to be different. Can you talk more about this?

Coco & Breezy: “[We] just really want to inspire people to really, again, go for their dreams. We all have multiple dreams, and sometimes you have, like for example, when we were younger, we used to be dancers, and we had a point in our lives where we wished we could be backup dancers as kids. And then, we had a point in our lives where we dreamed to be fashion designers. [We] always give people the advice, which is don’t only get stuck on one theme, because later on, you can realize that it all kind of comes together. And be gentle with yourself when it’s time to pivot. The fun part about us is that we think about the times when we were like, ‘We want to be famous dancers, and we want to be big fashion designers.’ We had so many careers that we were trying to build that didn’t work. But then now, as music artists, we’re doing all of that. We had no idea. We always knew we were going to do music, but [we] did not know that we were going to be whole music artists having songs, charting on the billboards, doing music videos. And we’re dancing, performing on big stages for thousands of people with our style and having moves. Those little careers that we were trying to build didn’t work. Now, we’re able to use those skills for something that’s so much bigger.

“So it’s wild that sometimes in your journey, you have no idea that you’re really building something for the future. But you just have to be present, and what that is is to be okay if it doesn’t work. Move on to the next.”