There’s a particular allure to building a creative career under a persona.
And if there’s anyone who knows this, it’s Ari Staprans Leff. Having made a name for himself as Lauv, he has spent the past few years soaring to the top of the charts, selling out arenas with a distinctive brand of nostalgic heartbreak pop defined by that airy versatile register.
This double life has afforded him a veneer of normalcy after being plucked out of obscurity. He’s living the best of both worlds as a pop star, akin to the life of that famous fictional alter-ego my generation knows too well.
While even casual listeners can name his biggest hits in just seconds, we can’t say we know the artist beyond the alias, the person behind the persona, if you will. Underneath the narratives, fame apparently would consume him, as the great tragedy of stardom goes. And much like many tragedies, we find the hero lost in the heat of it all.
Inside this luxe hotel room suspended atop the Makati skyline, Ari sits before me on this Friday morning, proud to announce to the world that he’s finally figuring it out. In fact, if you listen to his latest single, he gives a glimpse into what he’s realized so far.
“‘Potential’ is very much about discovering that you have feelings for people you initially thought of as friends,” he shares with me. “But it’s also reflective of my process of accepting that there’s a lot more going on inside of me than I thought.”
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The Reluctant Star
Unlike many celebrities who crave the limelight from an early age, Lauv wasn’t particularly vain about his meteoric rise. He had always been a reluctant star.
After an adolescence spent penning bedroom pop songs to middling success, he was ready enough for a career that may have been more appropriate behind the scenes. He had gone to New York University’s Steinhardt School, took up music technology and would intern at some of the city’s emerging recording studios. It was during this period that he learned to produce for other people rather than create for himself.
That is, until “The Other” came.
“At first, I was just like, ‘No, this isn’t gonna make a difference, I still feel like me. But what I definitely didn’t realize at the time was that my life changed so rapidly and intensely.”
The quietly released, self-produced single that spoke of the classic battle between the head and the heart gained quite the attention. It earned him an underground following plus a spot on Spotify’s Global Top 100.
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