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​AronChupa: "I've Heard 'I'm An Albatraoz' 100,000 Times"

The Swedish viral sensation gets surprisingly honest about his big hit.

"Fuck that little mouse, cuz' I'm an Albatraoz." You know how it goes. AronChupa's electro-swing ditty "I'm An Albatraoz" has gone full-on globally viral, gathering nearly 115 million plays on YouTube. The song's creator, 23 year old Swede Aron Ekberg, has been thrust into the limelight as the the track has gone platinum in four different countries, leading to a Swedish Grammy nomination for "Song of the Year" and his debut at last weekend's Ultra Festival in Miami.

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"I'm An Albatraoz" is one of the biggest crossover dance tracks in recent memory, but the droll Ekberg isn't caught up in the hype. "It's just some stupid song, pretty much," he laughs as he sits with the track's vocalist and his younger sister, 18 year old Nora. "The plan was just to show it to friends, really. Then it happened in Borås, right by Gothenburg in Sweden where we're from, and then to the whole country. I thought 'Man, that was easy…'"

The track opens with some vaudevillian swing and a nonsensical, sing-songy vocal refrain that earworms immediately before a a bounce beat kicks in. It's a novel pairing of styles. "It's boring to say, but I really do listen to everything," says Ekberg. "A lot of classical music, 50s, 60s, 70s. I've always been into swing and jazz. And I felt like it'd be cool to do something that's jazz and mix that up with electronic or the popular EDM genre."

Easy as it may have seemed, even Ekberg's unsure as to what it is about the tune that made it such a viral sensation. "I think that it's a pretty short track," he says. "It's straight forward. Man I'm so tired of listening to build ups for two minutes. I just felt like, 'fuck, man, give me the drop right away.'"

"I think the fact that it's weird," interjects Nora. "People are tired of listening to 'I love you and I miss you.' People wanna freak out and have fun."

Nora Ekberg

Aron and Nora (say them both backwards), have been a pair since the tune hit and were thusly thrust unprepared into some long-term sibling bonding. "It's good working with your brother since we know each other very well and we can always be honest," says Nora. "When Aron asks me something, he's like 'Nora, what do you think of this?' and I can honestly say if it sounds like shit if I really think that."

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Honesty is a refreshing family trait amongst the Ekbergs. Even though it was only released just over six months ago, Ekberg admits that the novelty song has lost part of it's novelty. "I've heard it probably one hundred thousand times," he says. "I hate the song, y'know. I almost got tired of it when I was mixing it, even before it was released!"

"You have to be a little stupid to do make a song as weird as that," laughs Nora. "I'm allowed to say you're stupid, Aron. It's okay."

Playing his songs live is still as exhilarating as it was the first time for Ekberg. That's the best thing about this whole crazy journey. "It's the best for me when you see people react in a good way to something you created. It's not necessarily energy from the song. It's energy from the crowd," he says. On Saturday, he played at Ultra Music Festival in Miami and it was an unlikely dream come true. "There are no bigger shows. It was an honor to have the chance to play there."

Ekberg's already refused to try to recreate the profitable virality of "Albatraoz" and doesn't care about any 'one hit wonder' tags. "Sometimes money's boring, because we really made it for fun in the beginning," he syas. "When money gets in the picture, it's too serious. I wanna do what I love, do the music I love. And even though the rest of the world won't love it, I'll know that I have it. Now I'm writing for myself and not necessarily for the rest of the world."

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