Laufey signs with Interscope and Verve after six years independent, and is already at work on new music
Laufey has spent six years proving an independent artist could build a global empire out of jazz-inflected pop, and now she is bringing that empire to a major. On September 16, the two-time Grammy winner announced she has signed with Universal Music Group’s Interscope Records and Verve Records, ending her run as an independent act. The deal, first reported exclusively by Variety, arrives with word that the Icelandic-Chinese singer-songwriter is already at work on new music.
The pairing is a telling one. Verve is the storied jazz institution that has housed Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone, while Interscope brings contemporary pop muscle and global reach. For an artist whose entire appeal rests on threading pop songwriting through jazz and classical traditions without putting either behind glass, landing at the intersection of those two labels is less a compromise than a perfect fit. It signals that neither side of Laufey’s identity, the crooner and the chart star, will be sanded down.
An Independent Empire
The numbers explain why UMG wanted her and why she waited. Across three studio albums, Laufey has amassed more than seven billion combined global streams, a staggering figure for any artist and an almost unheard-of one for music rooted in jazz balladry. She has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra, and the China Philharmonic Orchestra, bridging the concert hall and the streaming era in a way few of her peers can claim.
Her cultural footprint extends well beyond the stage. Laufey was named one of Time’s Women of the Year in 2025, honored as an Icelandic Knight by her country’s president, and watched her children’s book Mei Mei the Bunny become a New York Times bestseller. That combination of critical prestige, commercial scale, and mainstream crossover is exactly the profile major labels chase, and Laufey built all of it without one.
From ‘Bewitched’ to a New Chapter
The signing closes one chapter and opens another. Laufey’s third album, A Matter of Time, arrived in August 2025 via Vingolf Recordings and AWAL, led by the single “Tough Luck” and reuniting her with co-producers Spencer Stewart and Aaron Dessner, the latter best known for his work with Taylor Swift and The National. It followed her 2023 breakthrough Bewitched, the record that turned her from a rising name into a genuine phenomenon and earned her a Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.
Crucially, Laufey has never treated music as her only output. In 2025 she launched The Laufey Foundation to help young musicians access youth orchestra programs, initially supporting the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, LA Phil’s YOLA program, The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, and Carnegie Hall’s NYO2 and NYO Jazz. Her fourth annual A Very Laufey Day last month brought events to 75 cities across more than 25 countries, with proceeds from brand collaborations and merchandise flowing to the foundation. This is an artist who has built an ecosystem, not just a discography.
The move raises intriguing questions about what a major-label Laufey looks like. Part of her mystique has been the do-it-yourself narrative, the sense that her success upended industry assumptions about what young audiences would embrace. Signing to Interscope and Verve is a bet that she can scale that vision further, reaching orchestral stages and streaming playlists alike, without losing the intimacy that made her singular. No details of her next release have been announced, but the infrastructure of a major label suggests the ambition is only growing.
For the industry, the signing is a notable data point in an era where independence has become a viable path to stardom. Laufey proved the model works, then chose a major on her own terms and from a position of strength. Whatever comes next, she arrives at Interscope and Verve not as a project to be developed but as a fully formed star who spent six years building leverage. The jazz revival she helped ignite now has a major-label engine behind it, and Laufey is still the one steering.
