Join us every Tuesday for Salastina’s Happy Hour: bringing you free, live musical performance, spirited conversation, and interaction with musicians and fellow music lovers.

Half Chinese and half Icelandic, Laufey spent much of her childhood traveling between Reykjavík and Washington, DC, where she learned to speak English with barely a trace of an accent. Inspired in part by her mother, a classical violinist, she took up piano and cello early on, but it was her father's collection of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday albums that spoke to her on a deeper level. "I'm definitely very influenced by composers like Ravel and Chopin," Laufey explains, "but when I discovered the Great American Songbook and the music of George Gershwin and Richard Rodgers, it felt like this middle ground between jazz and classical that suited me perfectly."

Laufey dove into the music headfirst, captivated by the lush arrangements and dreamy vocals, and by her teenage years, she was already turning heads with a mesmerizing style that belied her young age. After landing a prestigious Presidential Scholarship to the Berklee College of Music, Laufey moved to Boston, where she began writing her own songs blending sophisticated jazz melodies and slow-burning R&B grooves. Unable to tour due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she began performing a mix of originals and vintage classics on Instagram and TikTok, and within a year, she would find herself racking up millions of likes, topping the Icelandic radio charts with her debut single, "Street By Street," and earning support from Billie Eilish and Willow Smith. Laufey will release her debut EP, Typical of Me, later this year.