Vinyl - Laila! - Gap Year ! - Limited Edition

Brooklyn-born Laila! is a one girl band. The 18-year-old polymath writes, produces, and sings, and has already crafted an oeuvre that is at once nostalgic and refreshing. A lifelong listener of R&B greats from Whitney Houston to Aaliyah and Brandy, Laila! has been composing her own songs for as long as she can remember, but it wasn’t until an extended stint on her family’s native island of Saint Thomas—at the height of the pandemic and when Laila! had just started high school—that she began creating her own beats. Later, she would release “Like That!,” a buoyant but soulful ballad that locates her sound in the company of experimental voices such as SZA and Brent Faiyaz.

Energized by the enthusiasm that ensued, she followed with beats on TikTok and a mixtape, “IN CTRL!,” with songs like “SOFT SERVE” and “80 in a 55” showing off her proclivity for combining vocals and working with ambient instrumentals while reflecting on life, love, and the bittersweet musings of adolescence. In a world where access to technology makes it easier than ever for artists to reinterpret, and even reinvent, the genres they hold dear—Laila!—whose first album is in the works—hungers to make an R&B all her own, and to show other young women that it is indeed possible to do it all, on your own terms.