As Lapid’s career carries on to blossom, her sound still pays homage to her early musical discoveries, blending bedroom pop, indie, and contemporary R&B with orchestral elements. Following a handful of EPs between 2021 and 2024, the 22-year-old dropped her long-awaited debut album, BUZZKILL, in April, which naturally showcased her evolution as an artist. To promote the record, Lyn is currently embarking on her first world headline tour, which she kicked off in Berlin.

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Continuing to win crowds over with her emotional and relatable songs that cover themes of young love, self-discovery, and modern dating, we caught up with Lapid after her trip to London, where she talks social media pressure, European fans, new music, and trying to live in the moment.

You just completed your first-ever European tour. I know it was a mini run this time around. However, how did you find the shows?

I felt like it was such a great time seeing the European fans for the first time because I didn’t know what to expect, and they showed out. They were so energetic and responsive to the new album, and also to all my old stuff. I think London was definitely the loudest city on that run, but every show in Europe was crazy energetic. It was really great. 

It’s interesting you say that because London is usually a tough crowd to please, because we’re spoiled. What was it about them that stood out?

I don’t know. I feel like that’s really surprising because right from the first song, they were screaming every lyric back at me. And it was almost hard to hear myself sing because they were so loud. I guess because there were very intimate rooms, I was able to just connect with everybody in the room. I think that was the biggest highlight, just being able to see everybody’s faces, and connecting with everyone there. That was a lot of fun. 

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These shows have been in promotion of your debut album, BUZZKILL, which dropped in April. How have you felt about the reception to it?

I feel the response has been so crazy and supportive. I was a bit nervous because I feel like I was doing a bit of a sonic change in my music and kind of just pivoting towards a certain chiller, jazzier, R&B-influenced genre, and I didn’t know how people would respond to that. And everyone has been loving every song. I feel like the album is a mix of different genres and sounds, but everyone has been connecting with the songs really well. And just seeing that in real time when people buy tickets and come to the shows is really surprising because these are the biggest shows I’ve ever played in my career as a headliner. The response has been crazy. I’m pleasantly surprised.

I read that your favourite song changes depending on how you’re feeling that day. What is it today?

I’d have to say maybe “take me as I am.” That song goes really hard live, and I think it’s because, besides the background vocal production, it’s a pretty bare song production-wise.

You’ve been consistent with your releases since putting out your first song. When did you begin creating this album?

Yeah. I feel like all of 2024, I was really trying to branch out into new spaces by releasing more collaborative music with other artists. I felt it was a great transition period from doing that and going into new spaces, and also working on the album at the same time. While I was making the album, I wanted to stay consistent with my music releases to make sure that I wouldn’t fall off the face of the earth. I felt like we strategically planned that 2024 was gonna be more collabs and just singles rather than full-length projects, so we could save it for this year. 

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What is the oldest song you wrote for the album?

The first one that we had written was back in 2023, called “fix.” That was the first time that I was branching into a newer genre that I hadn’t really touched before, which was the R&B, jazz influence. I think it’s because I’d been listening to artists kind of in that genre for the first time, and so that was the first song that came on the album, and I remember loving it when we first wrote it because it felt so fresh and new to my sound and my voice. I kinda used that as a gauge to paint the other songs around it and use that as the base inspiration. 

Your most recognisable song is “In My Mind,” which introduced you to a broad audience. What do you think it was about that song that really captured people’s attention?

I think the initial catch was the production. It was just me and my producer in that room, coming up with ideas to put “In My Mind” together. I love keeping writing rooms small to keep them collaborative. That song was just a lot of fun to write and record, and I think the production came really naturally. I think it was able to garner a lot of attention on TikTok because of how sick the production is. And I think over time, people would message me and would say that they really resonated with the lyrics, which I really appreciated because I felt like that song was a very honest song to write. I think over the years, both sides of the song production-wise and lyric-wise were able to carry it to how big it became. 

The song has over 200 million streams on Spotify alone. How often do you look at the numbers?

I feel like near the beginning, I was honestly struggling with my relationship with the numbers and algorithms and everything social media because to be honest, having songs that go as big as “In My Mind” can be really overwhelming and great in the moment, but then afterwards, you’re like, ‘How do I top that?’ I think when it came to “In My Mind” blowing up and I was making music afterwards, I found myself being in rooms and trying to make music to top that and and looking at the numbers and posting teasers on social media and using that as a way to decide what comes next. It’s a good marketing strategy to see which songs my fans resonate with, but I felt like I was getting stuck under the numbers, and it almost started to not be fun for me to make music because I was paying so much attention to just the numbers and not the music. I knew that I needed to make a mindset pivot from that and focus on it a little bit less and not try to attach the worth of my songs to how well it does on TikTok or Instagram. I used to pay attention a lot to the numbers, but I feel like, for the sake of my own sanity, I try to keep a balanced relationship with them. 

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Social media has played a huge part in your career, especially since TikTok helped you get signed. With it being such a vital part of most people’s careers now, there must be days when you want to switch off and forget about it.

Yeah. For sure. I think recently, I’ve been able to take longer breaks than before from social media because I now have a friend who’s helping me with it. Before, it was just me posting by myself, but now I have a friend who knows my algorithm and knows my audience and can take over for me, so I can have a little bit of stuff taken off my plate, which is really nice. I think that is helping me fix my relationship with social media and the stresses and anxiety that come with it. Before, it was rough for sure because it was just me every day having the obligation to be posting consistently and editing. Now that that’s taken off my plate, I feel like I can have a healthier relationship with it. 

I read you’re a big Olivia Dean fan and would love to collaborate with her. Who else from the UK are you loving?

There was this one artist who had opened for me in London and Manchester, Leonie Biney. I had discovered her on TikTok a couple of years ago from one of her songs that went viral. Seeing her live in person was so crazy because it was just her and keys, but I feel like her voice really did it for me, at least in a live setting. She’s so incredibly talented, and I love her music, sonically. It’s very calming, and I find myself listening to it a lot. I really admire her as an artist as well. 

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Are you already mapping out what’s next?

I feel like right now, I’m so focused on tour that it’s hard to think about the next steps moving forward. We definitely have plans for future releases already in the works, but right now, I’m focusing on tour, but I do keep it in the back of my mind that after it’s over, I hope to take at least a little bit of a break, just to rest a little bit and then come back to writing as soon as I can. I’m excited for this tour, especially, just because I get to focus on the music that I’ve made in the past year and a half. 

Is it hard to live in the moment with your job? You’re always on to the next thing.

Honestly, that’s a great question. It is hard to live in the moment because everything is just so on the go all the time. We were thinking, even this morning, we were trying to figure out how to make plans for brunch in San Francisco, and we might have to just book it for the next city, because we have to be in Seattle in the next two days. I would say it is pretty hard to live in the moment, especially on tour, because being able to explore the cities themselves is really hard, because we don’t have much time.

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