Laufey has signed her first conventional major-label recording deal with Interscope Records and Verve Records after building a career that already spans more than seven billion global streams, two Grammy wins and arena-headlining tours.
The deal was announced September 16th, only days after Laufey completed her 70-date A Matter of Time world tour in Mexico City. She is already working on new music, placing the Interscope/Verve signing at the beginning of her next album cycle rather than midway through an existing campaign.
Universal Music confirmed the signing but did not disclose financial terms, contract length, royalty structure, master ownership or how responsibilities will be divided between the two labels.
Laufey is not arriving at a major label as an emerging artist asking it to build an audience from scratch. She brings an established global following, a commercially proven catalog and a live business already capable of filling major venues.
AWAL Helped Carry Laufey to Arena Scale
Laufey’s first three albums were released in partnership with AWAL, the artist-services company owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Music Week describes the Interscope/Verve agreement as her first major recording deal after the success of that earlier model.
The distinction is important when describing Laufey’s rise as independent. Her previous recording career followed an artist-services path rather than a conventional major-label deal, but AWAL itself has been part of Sony Music Entertainment since 2022. Laufey was therefore not operating without access to major-company infrastructure.
That arrangement carried Everything I Know About Love, Bewitched and 2025’s A Matter of Time. Across the three albums, Laufey has accumulated more than seven billion combined global streams, according to the signing announcement.
Her commercial growth extended well beyond streaming. Bewitched won the Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, and A Matter of Time repeated that victory. The latter also reached No. 3 in the UK, while “From the Start” has become her biggest-selling track there with more than 513,000 units, figures cited by Music Week show.
The live operation expanded alongside the records. Laufey has sold out venues including the Hollywood Bowl, Radio City Music Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Madison Square Garden and Crypto.com Arena while also performing with orchestras such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic and National Symphony Orchestra.
By the time a conventional major-label recording agreement entered the picture, much of the audience development associated with such a deal had already happened.
Laufey Arrives With Seven Billion Streams
More than seven billion combined streams do not reveal the economics of Laufey’s previous agreements or the terms she negotiated with Interscope and Verve. They do establish that the labels are signing an artist with substantial consumption already attached to her name.
The same is true live. Laufey closed the A Matter of Time tour September 12th in Mexico City before a sold-out audience of more than 17,000. The tour ran for 70 dates globally.
That changes the basic question surrounding the deal. Major-label resources do not need to prove Laufey can attract an audience. Her previous recording and touring cycles already did that.
Instead, the next phase will show what additional scale Interscope and Verve can bring to an artist whose music already travels internationally across streaming, physical releases and major live venues.
The undisclosed contract terms prevent any responsible conclusion about whether Laufey received a larger advance, retained ownership of future masters or secured unusually favorable royalties because of that existing scale. Those details remain private.
What can be said is simpler: Interscope and Verve are beginning their relationship with a developed global artist rather than financing the earliest stages of one.
Interscope and Verve Cover Different Musical Ground
The two label names attached to the deal make unusual sense for Laufey’s music.
Interscope operates inside Interscope Geffen A&M, Universal Music Group’s contemporary label operation spanning pop, rock, hip-hop, R&B and alternative music. Its infrastructure places Laufey inside a major global release system built to support mainstream campaigns.
Verve brings a different history. Founded by Norman Granz in 1956, the label is closely associated with artists including Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone, while its current roster includes Grammy-winning jazz artists such as Samara Joy and Jon Batiste.
The signing announcement presents both labels as partners in Laufey’s next recording chapter rather than assigning publicly defined roles to each company.
Musically, Laufey has long occupied territory between those institutional worlds.
Her songs draw on jazz standards, orchestral pop and traditional vocal music without operating exclusively inside the contemporary jazz market. Strings, piano, brushed percussion, bossa nova rhythms and intimate vocal arrangements coexist with songwriting and release strategies designed for a modern streaming audience.
That helps explain why the pairing feels less unusual than the corporate logos might suggest. Laufey can sit naturally beside Verve’s jazz history while maintaining the reach of a contemporary pop artist through Interscope.
A Matter of Time Pushed the Model Further
The signing follows Laufey’s largest album cycle yet.
Released in 2025, A Matter of Time extended the orchestral and jazz-pop language of Bewitched while giving her a second consecutive Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.
The touring cycle pushed further into arenas without separating Laufey from the musical presentation that had built her audience. Earlier in September, she headlined Rock in Rio’s Sunset Stage before completing the final dates of the 70-show tour in Mexico City.
That sequencing creates a clean dividing line in her recording career.
The AWAL partnership carried Laufey through three studio albums and the complete A Matter of Time cycle. Whatever she releases next will be the first new-music campaign developed under the Interscope/Verve agreement.
No album title, single, release date, producer lineup or track list has been announced. The labels have confirmed only that Laufey is currently working on new music.
Warner Chappell Still Handles Laufey’s Publishing
The new recording deal does not move every part of Laufey’s music business to Universal.
In April, she renewed her global publishing agreement with Warner Chappell Music. The Warner Chappell agreement covers her songwriting catalog and future compositions.
Laufey’s business is therefore split across major corporate groups. New recordings will be released through Universal’s Interscope and Verve operation, while Warner Music Group’s publishing division continues representing her songwriting interests.
A recording agreement governs rights and services around the recorded-music side of a career, while publishing concerns the underlying compositions. The ownership provisions inside Laufey’s new recording contract have not been disclosed, so the signing should not be interpreted as confirmation that Universal owns her future masters.
The Warner Chappell renewal also predates the new label agreement by several months. Laufey’s move to Interscope and Verve is a change to her recording structure, not a wholesale consolidation of her music rights under one company.
Laufey Built More Than a Streaming Audience
The seven-billion-stream figure captures the scale of Laufey’s recorded music, but the audience surrounding it now extends into a wider direct-to-fan ecosystem.
August brought the fourth edition of A Very Laufey Day, a coordinated arts event reaching 75 cities across more than 25 countries. Programming connected music with cultural spaces and events, while proceeds from brand collaborations and merchandise supported The Laufey Foundation’s work expanding access to music education.
Laufey has also moved into publishing outside music. Her children’s book, Mei Mei The Bunny, became a New York Times bestseller in 2026.
Those projects are relevant to the label deal because Interscope and Verve inherit more than streaming listeners. Laufey already has an audience accustomed to buying concert tickets, physical products and participating in events built around a recognizable artistic world.
The labels are joining that ecosystem rather than constructing it.
The Next Album Will Show What the Deal Changes
The most important details of Laufey’s Interscope/Verve agreement remain private.
Neither the labels nor Laufey have disclosed the length of the contract, advance, royalty structure, master ownership, marketing commitments or whether the arrangement includes licensing provisions. Calling it a distribution deal, co-imprint structure or ownership transfer would go beyond what has been announced.
What is confirmed is simpler: Laufey has moved from an AWAL artist-services partnership into her first conventional major recording deal while retaining a separate publishing relationship with Warner Chappell.
The timing gives the next album an unusually clear starting point.
Her first three albums established the audience. Two Grammys established industry recognition. More than seven billion streams established consumption. A 70-date world tour established live demand.
Interscope and Verve arrive after all four.
The next record will therefore offer the first real evidence of what major-label infrastructure changes for a Laufey album campaign, whether through international reach, marketing scale, radio, physical distribution, collaborations or areas the labels have not yet detailed publicly.
No release date has been announced. For now, the most revealing part of the deal may be when Laufey chose to make it: not while trying to prove her previous model could work, but after showing how far it could already take her.