Lauv

Ari Staprans Leff, born August 8, 1994 in San Francisco, is known by the stage name Lauv; he is an American musician, singer, songwriter, pianist and guitarist.

Interested in music from a young age, he took piano and viola lessons and began playing guitar around age eleven. In high school he played in several bands and studied jazz before discovering electronic music production.

In 2014, while studying music technology at N.Y.U., a difficult breakup led him to focus intensely on writing and recording. Out of that period came the song The Other, co-written with composer and instrumentalist Michael Matosic. Released under his stage name — inspired by the Latvian word «lauva» meaning lion — the song went viral after catching the attention of blogs and reached number three on the aggregator Hype Machine.

He released his first EP, Lost in the Light, in 2015, which included The Other. Other tracks followed, such as Reforget (2015) and Question (2016), featuring Travis Mills.

In 2017 he launched the Late Nights, Deep Talks tour, released the official video for The Other and a series of remixes. His single I Like Me Better, released in May 2017, became an international hit; it was included on his second self-titled EP in October and also appeared on his first full-length album, I Met You When I Was 18 (2018), which also featured the singles Paranoid and Bracelet.

Successful collaborations with Julia Michaels on There's No Way and with Troye Sivan on I'm So Tired… carried him through 2019. His first studio album, ~how i’m feeling~, was scheduled for March 2020.