Laufey Lín Jónsdóttir was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, to an Icelandic father and Chinese mother. Her mother played the violin for the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and her grandparents were professors of violin and piano.
Laufey and her identical twin sister, Junia, both started playing music at a young age. Junia chose the violin while Laufey, also proficient in piano and guitar, gravitated towards the cello. "Initially, I needed to be pushed to do music,"
Laufey told The Guardian. "But I'm grateful that my mother made me practise every day for an hour, because when I reached 13, it suddenly clicked."
Laufey faced challenges as one of the few Asians in her community. Music, introduced through her father's jazz collection and her mother's classical repertoire, became her escape and social endeavor. Joining a youth orchestra in her teens, she used music as a means to transcend cultural differences.
"I definitely felt like a foreigner, being one of the few Asians in Iceland, and having lived partially in the States from 6 to 9 years old," Laufey said. "On top of that, I was a nerdy orchestra kid. I didn't go home to play with friends, I went home to practice. Music became this project that I hoped would be my ticket to the big world of the States or the UK."
Despite initially seeing herself as a performer, Laufey's perspective shifted at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she discovered a community of friends writing their own songs. Her time there marked a period of growth, independence, and a transition from classical to jazz studies, providing her with a rich pool of experiences to draw upon for her songwriting.
Laufey created "Street by Street," her first single, when she was 20. Drawing inspiration from the Great American Songbook, she aimed for a middle ground between the old and the new.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, Laufey gained recognition by posting jazz standard covers online, combining her smooth alto with cello arrangements or acoustic guitar.
"The day I got back from school and started isolating, I told myself, 'OK, I'm just going to write and post as many videos online of me singing jazz standards as I can,'"
she recalled to Billboard. "I'll just see where it takes me."
This effort led to her signing with AWAL as her label partner, allowing her to maintain control over her music.
Laufey's second album, Bewitched, broke the record for the biggest first day for a jazz album on Spotify, with 5.7 million streams. It debuted at #23 on the Billboard 200, marking Laufey's first appearance on the chart, and won Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album at the 2024 Grammy Awards.
There's a fun debate about how to pronounce Laufey's name. While some pronounce it like "law-fee," the correct Icelandic pronunciation is closer to "loy-vei."
Whether it's ordering food or picking a shirt, Laufey says she's hopelessly uncertain and consults friends for input. But when it comes to music, she's the exact opposite: decisive, confident, and instinct-driven. "Music is the only area in my life where I'm like 'Yes. No,'" she said in an
Elle inside the studio interview.
Laufey keeps her songwriting ideas in a secret Notes app list so embarrassing she won't even show it to her closest friends. The jazz-pop songwriter often pulls over while driving to jot down stray thoughts sparked by things like billboards, resulting in a "really, really messy" digital notepad that forms the backbone of her songs. Most Laufey tracks begin as voice memos on her phone, often accompanied by a single lyric fragment - like "
silver lining" - that she builds on instinctively. Despite her reputation for refinement, her creative process is charmingly chaotic and completely personal.
In a twist that feels straight out of a Wes Anderson script, Laufey once appeared as a 13-year-old on an Icelandic talent show and was told she sounded like "a 40-year-old woman who's been divorced twice and chain smokes cigarettes." She laughed it off, but at the time she just wanted to be seen as, well, a girl. That premature gravitas in her voice helped set her apart but sometimes made her feel like a circus act.
As a teenager, Laufey used to sneak into the practice rooms at her music school in Boston to play jazz standards when she was supposed to be rehearsing classical cello. She admitted it felt a little rebellious, "like sneaking candy," since the culture around her was so strictly classical.
While Laufey was chasing music dreams, her twin sister Julia pursued a more traditional academic route, which Laufey says helped keep her grounded; because nothing humbles a rising jazz-pop star like your twin reminding you to "stop being dramatic."
While most of her friends were blasting pop radio, Laufey was listening obsessively to Ella Fitzgerald and Chet Baker in her bedroom. She said she sometimes felt like she was "born in the wrong decade," but that out-of-step taste became her trademark.
Laufey originally thought her cello would hold her back in the pop world. Instead, it's become her signature sound. She laughs about how, in the early days, she'd never have dared show up to a label meeting with a cello, but now it's the very thing that makes her stand out.
Laufey has
a cardigan-wearing stuffed bunny named Mei Mei ("younger sister" in Chinese), who serves as her mascot and musical alias. Laufey releases alternative versions of her songs - such as instrumental, lofi, and sped-up mixes - under the name "Mei Mei The Bunny."
