Grammy-winning musician Laufey carved an unconventional career out of her dream, and she’s bringing it to Asia

Laufey’s love of the genre would lead to her applying to study jazz at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, where she trained in the theories, history and techniques of the genre. When it came to recording her own music, though, she decided to reconfigure those jazz principles, blending them with influences from a wide spectrum of genres, including pop and classical music. “Jazz music by composers in the past is so sacred, and I’m not trying to reproduce that in any way, shape or form. I’m taking inspiration from it and making it into my own music that is ultimately a vessel to tell my stories,” she says.

The result is cosy, light-hearted love songs, with a jazzy, nostalgic mood sung in her soulful, honeyed voice. It’s this unique sound for which she’s celebrated, and which has triggered a wave of anemoia—nostalgia for a time or place you’ve never known—among Gen Zs.

The singer finds inspiration from her own life and observations of what’s around her to make music about modern romance. In Like the Movies (2021), for example, she daydreams about old-fashioned dating that doesn’t exist anymore; and in Beautiful Stranger (2022), she describes having a crush on a passenger on the London Underground. “Every song has a line of truth to it, and every song has a line of ambiguity, too,” she says. “I enjoy when the fans can take a song and interpret it in a way that matches their lives in some way.”

Some of her songs have a more serious undertone: in Letter to My 13-Year-Old Self (2023), the singer, who sees being Chinese as “a deep part of my heritage”, opens up about feeling “very foreign in Iceland growing up, which the Asian diaspora can resonate with; it’s one of the reasons I’ve grown such a large Asian following especially in western countries. I can’t help but feel that young Asians in the west have been missing artists to look up to and to create a community who are of Asian descent.”

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Now a public figure, Laufey feels honoured “to provide [a role model] for anybody. I get to see a community that comes together that I would have loved to be a part of growing up,” she says. “It’s no accident that I’ve gone twice to [perform in] Asia because I’ve cared about touring to Asia and connecting with that side of my heritage at an early point [in my career].”

Her sense of identity is reflected in her musical style. “I’ve never been able to categorise myself. I’ve never been able to answer in one sentence where I’m from or what kind of music I make. People definitely tried to [put me in a box],” she says with a wry smile. “I [may] have one song which resembles an old jazz standard, [but I also have another] that’s a complete mishmash of three or four different genres. That’s the beauty of music nowadays—you don’t really have to conform to one genre.”

The biggest lesson Laufey has learnt in the four years since she launched her career is that “there’s no rulebook”, either for her professional endeavours or her life. She remembers how she used to believe that “whoever followed the rules and performed the best would be rewarded”. Now, she hopes to inspire more young people to find the courage to follow their dreams, both through her music and how she lives her life. “Not everybody is lucky to have a passion for something, and that’s okay; but if you have a passion in this life, you owe it to yourself to at least believe in yourself and try it out.”

Laufey is proving that being different, undefined and at times challenged can mean that “you’re on to something good, because you’re doing something unique or new. Instead of always reading the sheet music, going off sheet music and improvising a bit is actually good, both in life and in music. Life is a lot more DIY than I thought.”

Credits

Editor-in-Chief Ahy Choi

Creative Direction Zoe Yau

Styling Direction Cherry Mui

Features Editor Zabrina Lo

Photographer BJ Pascual

Digital Artist KWC

On Site Stylist Liz Uy

Styling Assistants Jolo Bartolo, Maria Ayi Custodio

Hair Stylist Dale Mallari

Makeup Artist Anthea Bueno

Photographer Manager Pearl Acuesta

Photographer Road Manager Mela Serranilla

Photography Assistants Richard Detita, Damian Estrelles, Abel Santos, Jan Paul, Dela Cruz, Jumelle Rayos

Set Design Aren Dale Santos

Set Design Assistants Regie Alcayde, Manuel Tarroja

Setmen Nino Dumdum, Alexander Hapayan, Erickson Salvante, Erwin Arda, John Vincent Salvante

Wardrobe Chanel

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