Laufey
Laufey in 2023
Background information
Birth name	Laufey Lín Bing Jónsdóttir / 林冰[1]
Born	(1999-04-23) 23 April 1999 Reykjavík, Iceland
Genres	Jazz pop
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter
Instruments	Vocals piano guitar cello
Years active	2020–present
Labels	AWAL
Website	laufeymusic.com
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	林冰
Simplified Chinese	林冰
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Lín Bīng

Laufey Lín Bing Jónsdóttir (/ˈleɪveɪ/ LAY-vay, Icelandic: [ˈlœyːvei ˈliːn ˈjounstouhtɪr̥]; born 23 April 1999), known mononymously as Laufey, is a singer-songwriter from Iceland. She achieved prominence in the early 2020s for her success as a jazz artist, with critics noting that her jazz-inflected songs have received considerable success for a genre that has largely declined commercially.

Having performed as a cello soloist with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra aged 15, Laufey was a finalist on Iceland's Got Talent (2014) before she was a semi-finalist on The Voice Iceland (2015). She released her debut EP, Typical of Me (2021), and graduated from the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Her debut album, Everything I Know About Love (2022), charted in Iceland and the United States. It was followed by the album Bewitched (2023), which received a Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album nomination at the 2024 Grammys. The album's single "From the Start" found moderate chart success in Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Laufey has cited Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Chet Baker, Norah Jones, Taylor Swift, Franz Liszt and Frédéric Chopin^[2] as her influences.

Early life and education

Laufey Lín Bing Jónsdóttir was born on 23 April 1999 in Reykjavík. Her father is Icelandic and her mother is Chinese.^[3] The maternal side of her family is from Guangzhou.^[4] Her mother is a classical violinist and her grandfather, Lin Yaoji, was a violin educator at the Central Conservatory of Music in China, which Laufey credits as partly inspiring her love of music.^[5][6] She has an identical twin sister named Júnía Lín Jónsdóttir, who is a violinist and serves as her creative director.^[7][8] She lived in Washington, D.C., for two years and then moved back to Reykjavík in 2008, where she studied at the Álftamýrarskóli.^[9] Laufey started learning the piano at the age of four and the cello at the age of eight. She graduated from the Reykjavík College of Music, where she also studied singing, in 2018.^[10] She spent her childhood moving between Reykjavík and Washington, D.C.^[11]

At age 15, Laufey performed as a cello soloist with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.^[12] While in Iceland, Laufey participated in the 2014 season of Ísland Got Talent—the Icelandic version of Britain's Got Talent—where she ended as a finalist. The following year she also appeared as a contestant on The Voice Iceland and reached the semi-finals. At the time, she was the youngest competitor in the series' history.^[13]

Laufey graduated with a presidential scholarship from the Berklee College of Music in 2021. She currently resides in Los Angeles.^[4][14]

Career

Laufey in 2021

Laufey released her debut single, "Street by Street", on 6 April 2020 and it charted at number one on Icelandic Radio.^[15] She launched her first EP, Typical of Me, on 30 April 2021. It includes "Street by Street" and six other songs. Many of these tracks were written in her college dorm room. Rolling Stone particularly praised her rendition of "I Wish You Love".^[16] American Songwriter included the EP in its list of best albums of 2021.^[17] Additionally, Typical of Me received attention from musicians such as Willow Smith and Billie Eilish.^[7]

Laufey performed at the London Jazz Festival in November 2021.^[6] Around the same time, she collaborated with London's Philharmonia Orchestra to release "Let You Break My Heart Again".^[7] In December 2021, she collaborated with Dodie to release another single, "Love To Keep Me Warm", their cover of "Winter Weather" written by Ted Shapiro.^[18][19]

In spring and summer 2021 (and again in December for a Christmas special), Laufey hosted a weekly music show on BBC Radio 3 called Happy Harmonies on which she highlighted uplifting music in a wide variety of genres.^[20][21] She has a significant following on TikTok and Instagram, where she frequently hosts live sessions.^[4]

She made her United States network television debut when she appeared as the musical guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on 21 January 2022. She played her song "Like the Movies" from her debut EP, Typical of Me.^[22] Her debut album, Everything I Know About Love, was released on 26 August 2022 via AWAL to critical acclaim,^[23] and debuted at number one on Billboard's Alternative New Artist Album chart.^[24]

As of August 2023, Laufey has signed a global publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music (WCM).^[24] Laufey's second album, Bewitched, was released on 8 September 2023.^[25] A week before the release, Laufey leaked the sheet music in exchange for fans to pre-save the album.^[26] It was met with critical acclaim and garnered Laufey's first-ever Grammy Award nomination, for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards.^[27] Morgan Enos, writer at Grammys.com, wrote that Bewitched's success shows Laufey has left "jazz neophytes spellbound".^[28] Billboard opined that Laufey created a blueprint for the success of jazz in the modern music industry, helping push the genre back into the mainstream scene.^[29]

Influences

Although Laufey was influenced by and played classical music from an early age, she turned to her father's records of female jazz musicians such as Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday to develop her musical style.^[4] She has cited Fitzgerald and Chet Baker as her biggest artistic influences, naming the former as her favorite musician. Laufey also cited Taylor Swift, Norah Jones, and Adele as inspirations for her musicianship; she said "[Swift] has done for pop and country what I hope to do for jazz. She has managed to unite people across the world which is one of my main goals as a musician."^[30][29]

Discography

Awards and nominations

References