Ari Staprans Leff (born August 8, 1994), known professionally as Lauv (/laʊv/[5]), is an American musician best known for his breakout hit "I Like Me Better"; included on his compilation album I Met You When I Was 18 (The Playlist), which was released in 2018.

Lauv has also written songs for other artists such as "Boys" by Charli XCX and "No Promises" by Cheat Codes and Demi Lovato.

[7] Leff studied guitar, recording, sound design, production, voice, and songwriting with Jason Brook Zimmerman, co-owner and founder of the music lesson organization, Traveling Musician.

He would listen to Owl City's Maybe I'm Dreaming and study the production style and the abstract lyrical themes that use "dreamy" and "whimsical" images to describe love.

[13] He also adopted the artist name, Somersault Sunday, and published some songs and extended plays on his Myspace account.

[11][14] After graduating high school, Leff decided to pursue a behind-the-scenes role in music seeing that his career was not taking off.

[citation needed][16] Leff then formed his first solo music project, Somersault Sunday, when he was 14 years old on April 28, 2008.

Trevor Dahl of Cheat Codes (who was then making music under the moniker Plug in Stereo) featured on his track "Wishful Thinking" from the Intermission EP.

[20] Afterwards, Leff adopted the stage name Lauv, Latvian for "lion" (lauva), as a nod to his mother's heritage.

[23] Then, apart from releasing the single "Question" featuring Travis Mills in 2016, Lauv worked on writing and producing songs for other artists.

Most notably, he co-wrote and co-produced "No Promises" for Cheat Codes and Demi Lovato,[10] which reached number 7 on the Billboard Pop Songs chart.

[24] In an interview with iHeartRadio, Lauv stated that he had been friends with Trevor Dahl from Cheat Codes since "back in the Myspace days.

"[25] On May 19, 2017, Leff released the single "I Like Me Better",[26] an up-tempo track inspired by his relationship that began shortly after he moved to New York City.

[30] During the tour, he had a box named "My Blue Thoughts", in which he told fans to write down anything they wanted to and put it inside.

[36] In November 2018, Lauv announced his first headlining tour starting the next year in Asia, including India, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Japan.

[38] They first met at a rehearsal space, and after writing another song that didn't work out, Lauv played Sivan the chorus of "I'm So Tired..." which he had written a few days prior.

[40] On April 25, 2019, Lauv released the single and music video for "Drugs & the Internet", which he says he wrote when he was struggling with feelings of emptiness and depression.

During the concert, Lauv stated that "This is officially the biggest headline show that I ever played," and he wanted to have the video shot in Manila.

[46][47] On August 1, 2019, he released "Fuck, I'm Lonely", a collaboration with British singer Anne-Marie for the soundtrack of the third season of 13 Reasons Why.

The album is being promoted with the How I'm Feeling Tour, which began in Washington, D.C., on October 5, 2019, and will conclude in Perth, Australia, on November 26, 2020.

[57] On December 22, 2019, Lauv made his debut in Bollywood through a collaboration with composer Rochak Kohli for the song "Dil Na Jaaneya", which features on the soundtrack of Bollywood film Good Newwz[58] On January 2, 2020, Lauv released the eighth single and music video for his debut album How I'm Feeling, titled "Changes".

[59] Two weeks later, on January 16, 2020, Lauv released the ninth single and music video for How I'm Feeling, titled "Tattoos Together".

"Who" with K-pop sensations BTS,[62] "Canada" with Alessia Cara,[63] and "El Tejano" with Sofia Reyes, with the latter receiving a music video released on May 19.

[64] Additionally, singles released the previous year, such as "Mean It" with LANY, "Fuck, I'm Lonely" with Anne-Marie and "I'm So Tired..." with Troye Sivan were added onto the album.

[66] On May 22, Lauv once again teamed up with artists mxmtoon and Jeremy Zucker, alongside Vivek Murthy for a three part one-on-one conversation regarding mental health.

[71] On October 10, 2020, in honor of World Mental Health Day, Lauv once again teamed up with artists, creators and experts from around the world as part of an effort to erase stigma surrounding mental health with a series of livestreamed conversations which can be found on Lauv's YouTube Channel.

[77] Around this time, it was revealed in a Billboard article that Lauv finalized a distribution deal with Virgin Music Label & Artist Services.

At the same time, he co-wrote Mimi Webb's song "This Moment" for the animated teen comedy film Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken.

Microsoft and Leff teamed up to release "My Blue Thoughts", a place for people struggling to share what they were going through and to let go of something weighing them down.