Lauv

About Lauv

Ari Staprans Leff started making music in his college dorm room, which is pretty much exactly what you'd expect from someone who'd go on to define bedroom pop for a generation of people with feelings. He grew up in San Francisco, studied music technology at NYU, and by 2014 was producing tracks under the name Lauv—a Latvian word meaning "lion" that his family used to call him. The stage name stuck. The bedroom pop thing really stuck.

His breakout came in 2017 with "I Like Me Better," a song that somehow captured the entire honeymoon phase of a relationship in three minutes. It racked up billions of streams and ended up soundtracking approximately every coming-of-age montage on the internet. But before that, he'd been building a catalog of intimate electronic pop songs that felt like voice memos set to beats. "The Other" and "Reforget" showed he could write about the messy parts of relationships without getting dramatic about it.

"I Like Me Better" opened doors, but Lauv kept the momentum going with a steady stream of singles that read like diary entries. "Paris in the Rain" became another streaming monster, leaning into romantic optimism without tipping into cheese. Then "I'm So Tired" with Troye Sivan arrived in 2019, a perfect match of two artists who specialized in turning low-key sadness into pop hooks. The collaboration worked because neither of them oversold the emotion.

His debut album "How I'm Feeling" dropped in 2020 after years of EPs and singles. It was sprawling—21 tracks that sometimes felt like he'd just uploaded his entire hard drive—but it confirmed what the singles had suggested. He could write about anxiety, loneliness, and relationship confusion in ways that felt specific enough to be real but universal enough to soundtrack other people's lives. "Modern Loneliness" and "Tattoos Together" stood out as the kind of songs that get quietly added to playlists and stay there.

"All 4 Nothing" followed in 2022, and he'd refined the formula. Still vulnerable, still electronic, but with clearer songwriting and less filler. "26" hit especially hard—a song about getting older and not having everything figured out that didn't try to resolve anything. That refusal to wrap things up neatly has always been his strength.

Now he's settled into being the guy who makes sad-but-danceable pop songs for people who grew up on the internet. He tours consistently, collaborates with artists across the pop and alternative spectrum, and keeps putting out music that sounds like the inside of your head at 2am. The production got bigger over time, but the core thing—turning private thoughts into public pop songs—hasn't really changed. He figured out early what he was good at and just kept doing it.

Lauv shows are quieter than you'd expect—lots of phone lights out, people genuinely engaged with the words. He's a solo artist who commands a room without trying, which means the energy is contemplative rather than explosive. Crowds sing every word back to him.

Known for 26, Paris in the Rain, Breathe, The Story, Modern Loneliness

See Lauv Live