The 23-year-old Icelandic-Chinese jazz musician Laufey, has taken TikTok and younger generations by storm, encouraging the youth to listen to jazz and classical music.

This all began in 2020 in her Boston dorm, with 100,000 streams after a month of her first release. She is really one of the first of this generation to take the genre jazz and bring it to mainstream, and now she has over 3 million listeners on Spotify. There are many people in Generation Z, including myself, who haven’t explored the jazz genre before listening to Laufey.

What makes Laufey so unique? She clearly has a gift in combining sounds to create a very different sound, combining modern-day jazz with majestic vocals. Her relatable lyrics are combined to make unique music, opening the minds of the youth to other different genres, not just trendy music of today.

Laufey’s relatively new album, “Bewitched,” has broken records on Spotify for the biggest debut for a jazz album in Spotify history. This album has been very successful, with songs such as “Promise” gaining 2.3 million views on YouTube, which debuted just 3 months ago.

Many Canyon students have enjoyed this album, particularly senior Valeria Medrano. Medrano states, “I love Laufey’s new album and Laufey in general. Her music is so beautiful and different compared to a lot of other artists today.”

Laufey likes her unique melody, and according to Laufey, she does not wish to divert from her usual sound. According to Laufey, “It’s funny, when I started, I always expected that I’d really have to fight for my place being a jazz singer, and I’d have to be fighting labels or managers being like, ‘No, I’m going to stay my route,’ and that’s really not ever happened.”

Her passion for creating modern jazz of today with amazing vocals has paid off, as she just continues to get more and more popular. Though she is also seen as a funny TikTok and Instagram personality, her music speaks for itself in all its seriousness and sublime beauty.