Superfruit — the musical project of Pentatonix members Mitch Grassi and Scott Hoying — just dropped their latest album, Future Friends: Part Two, today (Sept. 15), and one of the tracks, “Fantasy,” features Amber Liu from K-pop girl group f(x). On paper, it seems like an unlikely collaboration: what do two Grammy-winning a capella singers have to do with a K-pop idol?
For one, all three performers double as musicians and vloggers. Superfruit’s YouTube channel boasts 2.4 million subscribers, where they produce a variety of content, such as covers, challenges and Q&As. Amber, a Los Angeles native who moved to Korea in 2008, recently returned to producing English-language content for her channel, What the Pineapple!, after almost a year’s absence from YouTube.
That cohesion of their interests translates to the song itself. “Fantasy” is at home with Amber’s f(x) discography as it adds a tropical twist to an electro-pop sound. When her verse drops, she seamlessly weaves between rapping and R&B-style singing. The song taps into an unexpected duality between electronica and natural textures built on layered vocals — which is potentially an offshoot of the Pentatonix penchant for constructing soundscapes out of vocals.
In a live stream, Grassi and Hoying talked about the songs on Future Friends Part 2, where the latter revealed that “Fantasy” is his fave on the album. “It makes me feel so good,” Hoying said. “And whenever I go back to listen to things, I always put on Fantasy first.” Then the duo talked about their collaboration with Amber Liu. “K-pop is so much fun, and we are obsessed,” Hoying said.
The duo revealed that the collaboration actually came about over Twitter when Amber tweeted in June that she liked Superfruit’s song, “Bad For Us.”
Bad for us- superfruit @scotthoying
— Amber J. Liu ??? (@llama_ajol) July 1, 2017
“We freaked out,” Hoying continued. “We were like, ‘queen Amber Liu from f(x) likes ‘Bad For Us.’” Naturally, he slid into her DMs to see if she wanted to work together on a song. When she agreed, they sent her the track — and in two days, she sent back a full verse “that was so good.” After all, Amber’s a very prolific songwriter herself, penning cheeky bops like “Shake That Brass.” Hoying concluded that the duo feels “honored to have such a major K-pop star on our song.”