In the music video for "i’ll be happy when," Lyn Lapid performs with her band to a largely disinterested audience at a house party. As she reflects on her life in Los Angeles and the feeling of being invisible, people begin to notice her, and she spirals with anxiety. Lapid begins repeating the line: "Will I be a buzzkill forever?"
The video is a case of art imitating life for the 22-year-old Filipino American singer/songwriter, who moved to L.A. from a small town in Maryland. "For a while, I felt I was putting on a facade or mask, and morphing myself into a version that could be liked by everybody [in person and] online," Lapid tells GRAMMY.com. "I never felt so miserable because I wasn’t being true to myself. I was doing things I don’t even like to do for the sake of not being alone."
On her debut album, Buzzkill, Lapid tackles the topics of loneliness, real and fake friendships, and eventual self-acceptance. "I’m so grateful for writing Buzzkill because that was my thought process of navigating that part of my life where I’m trying to figure out what I truly value and need to let go of."
Written over a year and a half and imbued with a soft and soulful tone over a bed of R&B, indie, alternative, and pop, Buzzkill is some of Lapid's most vulnerable work. While her previous EPs did touch on growing up feeling like an outsider and situationships, she says Buzzkill focused on coming of age as an adult.
Lapid was only 16 when she found fame in 2018 when her cover of "Best Part" by Daniel Caesar and H.E.R. went viral; her social media presence skyrocketed two years later when her original song, "Producer Man," went viral on TikTok. Her song "Cruise Control" was used in the Disney/Pixar film Inside Out 2.
"Producer Man" was about a sketchy music producer who wanted Lapid to change everything about herself to cater to the music industry. In response, Lapid did what she knew best: wrote a song about it to remind herself never to give into the temptation of fame and success. She maintains that mentality, even after signing with Republic Records (now Mercury Records) and releasing five EPs.
"My definition of success is connecting with people who feel alone and making them feel seen," she says.
GRAMMY.com spoke to Lyn Lapid about her Buzzkill and upcoming world tour, which kicks off on May 6. The singer details how her EPs influenced the sound of her debut album, her relationship with social media, and what she’s looking forward to in the years ahead.
This interview has been edited for brevity.
How do you feel about your debut album's upcoming release and world tour?
To be honest, I feel overwhelmed and scared. I’ve never released a full album before. I don’t know what to expect.
I’m branching out into a different sound. Lyrically, I’m so honest in this album about personal things in my life [and] putting it out into the world is going to be very vulnerable. I have no idea how my fans are going to react. As I [made] this album, I wasn’t focused on [creating] a sound that people wanted to hear. [I was] making a sound that was true to my artist project — and to me, as a person.
Tell me the significance of your album and tour title; what is your definition of a buzzkill?
"Buzzkill" was such a keyword that I always came back to while writing the album. I wrote the album about my first year living in a new city, outside of my parents’ house, and the experience with that. Everybody talks about "coming of age" being in your teens…but nobody talks about "coming of age" in your 20s and making friends as adults.
I felt like everything I knew initially was wrong about how to make friends, and [the culture] between the East Coast and the West Coast. I’m the type of person to keep my circle small, and I can’t fake a conversation or an interaction. It’s very different over here with the people; everywhere I went, I felt like I brought the mood down. I felt like a buzzkill because I wouldn’t click with the people I was meeting.
So "buzzkill" was just that word I kept [returning] to because I was trying to find my way while living in L.A. The moral of Buzzkill is that you only feel like a buzzkill with the wrong people. That’s what I realized living in L.A. and making new friends: I needed to let go of my need to be liked, or want[ing] to be [everyone’s] friend and just allow myself to find the people who don’t make me feel like a buzzkill.
Your first EP, The Outsider, was centered on feeling like an outsider. Your follow-up EP, to love in the 21st Century, tells a story about relationships and the perception of love. How have these EPs prepared you for this album?
I was finding my sound and style lyrically. With Outsider, I was very experimental with where I wanted to take my sound and trying to figure everything out. To love in the 21st century is when I honed in on one certain sound.
Those projects tie in together. They’re very cohesive with what they’re about, thematically, sonically, and lyrically. With this album, Buzzkill, I truly felt this is the north star where I wanted to be sonically, lyrically, and thematically. I was finally able to hone in on that sound.
Jumping off the title of "i’ll be happy when," when do you, Lyn Lapid, feel like you’ll truly be happy? What makes you truly happy?
Buzzkill was that self-discovery journey to find true contentment with myself, my situation, and my place in life.
The album starts where I’m unsure of where I belong, and I don’t know who my true friends are. I’m trying to figure out who I am and my values. By the end of the album, I’ve realized that I need to let go of the need to be liked by everybody and wanting to fit in every room with every person I meet. It’s letting go of that control and allowing myself to let go and find the people that truly matter in my life, who value me as much as I value them. That’s my definition of true happiness in my personal life.
With my career, I have so many bad habits with numbers and falling into the rabbit hole of toxic ways to use success and money. Money is important, but, in my career, I view success and true happiness as making music that I resonate with and is authentic to me and my artist project. It’s seeing the true fans that resonate with that and the music.
What is your favorite track or lyric from Buzzkill?
It switches all the time based on how I’m feeling. But the one [that I really got] to be vulnerable [on] was "floater friend." Sad songs are written all the time, but this one [was] real feelings that I’m writing about real people. I’m honest on this album, [and] the people in my life who care about me will hear this for the first time, so it will be interesting to see [their reactions]. This song is [my most] vulnerable on this project.
You started in this industry at 17 and are now 22. What have you learned throughout this process?
Every time I release a song, it’s a new step in a new direction. With my songwriting and songs over the years, you can hear the progression of finding the sound I love making, the lyrics and style I love writing, and the kind of stories I want to tell. It’s just the process of allowing time to hone in on my craft and run new sounds that I love, running into new artists that I vibe with sonically and lyrically, and letting that influence my songwriting.
You’ve previously collaborated with artists such as mxmtoon, Grentperez, Ruth B, and Eric Nam. Are there any others you’d be interested in collaborating with?
One artist I felt was my north star sonically and lyrically when I was making [Buzzkill] is Olivia Dean. She’s such a cool artist. She is so locked into her sound. That inspired me, sonically — and the pure joy she puts out when performing and putting out music. That’s definitely the vibe I wanted with this project. So, even just to meet her would be crazy, and a collab with her would be a dream of mine.
This generation of young adults prefers short-form content like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. How do you keep up with the ever-changing internet trends, and do you feel that artists need to do it to keep up?
Honestly, I am just keeping up. I’m still trying to figure out my algorithm, niche, and the right way to promote my music to reach new fanbases and audiences. I had no idea what I was doing with social media when I started; even now, I feel that way. The algorithm and social media are changing so much every day, and it’s hard to navigate that. It’s really a guessing game on what does well online and what niche I should craft.
How have the internet and social media changed your life and perspective of the music industry?
Social media essentially started my career. It was easy for me to sink into unhealthy and toxic ways to view social media…and be caught up in the number of likes and views. The numbers influenced me a bit: Oh, this sound [or lyric] does well online or this kind of content or sounds that weren’t authentic to me. I felt like I had to push myself for the sake of views or likes.
I’m still trying to figure out my relationship with social media and how that influences my music and songwriting. It’s still very much a work in progress.
How do you deal with content creation burnout or even musical burnout?
Songwriting is tricky. Content creation is tricky. Since I started making music, I’ve been going project after project, song after song. There was a moment near the end of making Buzzkill where I was in sessions every single day; different sessions, people, and different parts of the city every day. I’m the type to keep going and working to push myself. I don’t decide that I’m done. My body decides that I’m done.
At the end of last summer, I was so socially and creatively burnt out by all the different ways I could write about my experiences in real time. When it comes to that, I [tell] my team and everyone close to me that this is where my head is, and I need to step back for the longevity of my career.
Do you feel you grew up fast and never enjoyed the process of your young adult life?
I compare my life heavily to the friends I grew up with. They followed the traditional path of attending a four-year college, finding a job there, and making new friends. That’s what I wrote for my first EP, The Outsider. I felt like an outsider going into such an intense career at a young age. The ways I would make friends would be very different from [meeting friends in college].
Being thrown into the industry at such a young age was overwhelming. I wouldn’t say I lost the chance to experience making friends and finding my way in growing up while in the industry. But it’s very different from what I was expecting in my 20s. The 16-year-old me would look at me now with her jaw on the floor [amazed] that this is my life. This is how I’m navigating my early 20s. I’m just figuring it out as I go.
What do you hope to achieve in the next five years?
I love what I’m doing now. I just want to be able to continue to make music that resonates with people and find those people who feel seen in this situation — whether it be happy or sad. I definitely want to level up as an artist and find those people on a bigger scale as much as any artist does.
I truly just want to be able to, at least in the next five years, tell myself that I am still authentic with my music, sound, artist project, and my image online, in the industry, and everywhere. Wherever I go, I want to still be authentic with myself and be surrounded by the people who value that.
This is your first world tour. What are you looking forward to the most?
I am excited for the fans to see the new set. For the past three years, I played the same set; slightly different songs every time as time progressed. But this is the set where everything is new. I’m not abandoning all my old music and songs in my catalog, but this live set will be fresh.
There are many songs that I wrote for this album that didn’t make the cut, but I knew I didn’t want to completely abandon them. I definitely have plans to incorporate them into the set somehow, maybe performing them at the small VIP section before the concert or having a moment in the set where I sing it live anyway. I do that all the time with my tours, performing an unreleased song.