Throughout North America, thousands of fans are dressing in their frilliest best and flocking to major stadiums—and they're not chasing Taylor Swift. They're into Laufey, an Icelandic-Chinese singer-songwriter whose music, while definitely pop, is also undeniably jazz.
As a child, Laufey was inspired by her father's vintage album collection, chock full of Billie Holiday, Chet Baker, and Ella Fitzgerald. Through the singer-songwriter, some young people are being exposed to jazz for the first time. Since the release of her 2023 album Bewitched, Laufey has enraptured her primarily teen and twenty-something fans with her whimsical sense of fashion, coquettish voice, and Latin jazz-inspired songs.
While the scale of her success is atypical for a jazz artist in 2025, if you give a deep listen to Top 40 radio, blending jazz and pop as Laufey does is not unheard of. Some may claim jazz is irrelevant, even "dead," but here are some contemporary popular music acts that suggest otherwise.
Lady Gaga
In 2008, Lady Gaga skyrocketed to fame following her debut record, The Fame, and has since won 14 Grammy awards. Although she's known best for her catchy, danceable pop ditties, Lady Gaga was influenced early on by jazz singers like Billie Holiday and Etta James—and has continued to nod to, and outright perform, jazz throughout her career as an international pop star.
After meeting lauded jazz singer Tony Bennet in 2011 at a charity gala in New York City, Bennet invited Lady Gaga to sing a duet with him on his duets record, Duets II, and that eventually led to the pair releasing two full-length records of jazz duets—Cheek to Cheek, in 2014, and Love for Sale, in 2021.
Likewise, from 2019 to 2024, Gaga held down a Jazz & Piano residency in Las Vegas, where she regularly performed a combination of jazz standards and her own songs in a pared-down piano style.
Kendrick Lamar
Any pop-meets-jazz overview would be remiss to overlook Grammy and Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper and songwriter Kendrick Lamar. Born and raised in Compton, California, Lamar is known for his critically acclaimed approach to West Coast hip-hop, which centers social, political and cultural issues faced by the Black community through an artful mix of storytelling, samples, and beats.
While Lamar's initial records highlighted his prowess as a conscious lyricist and affection for jazz samples, 2015's To Pimp A Butterfly exhibits just how deep his jazz influence goes. The spellbinding record situates Lamar's skillful verses among complex chord progressions, soulful vocals, live instrumentation and performances from prominent jazz musicians including saxophonist Kamasi Washington and groundbreaking pianist Robert Glasper.
"Kendrick Lamar brought new light to a hybrid of jazz and rap that had been happening underground," Marcus J. Moore wrote for NPR in 2020.
Moore called, To Pimp a Butterfly, Lamar's second major-label album, "an expansive collage of hip-hop, funk and soul, with jazz firmly affixed to the center."
The record was groundbreaking, and 10 years after its release, To Pimp A Butterfly is still regarded as the superstar rapper's magnum opus.
Flying Lotus
Flying Lotus has long made waves in the music industry as an innovative, Afrofuturist DJ and record producer. His experimental electronic soundscapes enhance tracks from popular musicians like Mac Miller, Thundercat, and Erykah Badu.
While his music often incorporates hip-hop elements, it is also deeply informed by jazz, particularly the avant-garde, spiritual, and fusion jazz of artists like Herbie Hancock, Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane and John Coltrane. The Coltranes also happen to be FlyLo's great aunt and uncle on his maternal side.
Jazz is often associated with a sense of traditionalism, but Flying Lotus looks at jazz as a mindset for exploration and creation. According to a 2024 interview with Jazz Times, he aims to push those values forward in his own work.
"The idea of jazz back in the day is that it was supposed to grow and evolve and change, and be this great form of expression," he said. "I think it's become stale over time. People stopped seeking; people stopped trying to take it further, and became obsessed with tradition."
The producer frequently incorporates polyrhythms, extended jazz harmonies, and cascading harp. He's also collaborated with Hancock, and jazz-funk-rock bassist Thundercat.
Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish is a Grammy-winning singer-songwriter who first rose to prominence at age 13, when a video of her singing her brother's song, "Ocean Eyes," went viral online. Since, she's released an EP, two full-length records, and as of this writing, she has nearly 88 million total monthly listeners on Spotify.
Many of Eilish's songs reflect jazz influence, like "Billie's Bossa Nova," which nods to the Latin jazz style, and "Xanny," a jazzy ballad which, as Eilish told MTV, highlight her affection for the rich, crooner-style vocals of Frank Sinatra.
Eilish also occasionally performs jazz standards live. In 2021, Eilish sang "I'm In The Mood For Love" at the BBC Radio 1 Lounge, and in 2022, she performed "Fever," alongside jazz bassist Christian McBride and the iconic Count Basie Orchestra.
Doechii
One of the newer stars to rise on this list, rapper and singer Doechii first broke through when her songs went viral on TikTok in 2021. Since, she's earned herself a Grammy, as well as Billboard Women in Music's "Rising Star" award in 2023, and Woman of the Year in 2025.
Doechii, who attended a performing arts high school in Tampa, Florida, weaves together rap, vocals, theatre and dancing. Musically, the rapper organically fuses hip-hop with jazz-funk. Her hit, "DENIAL IS A RIVER," nods to the boom-bap style beats of MF DOOM and to jazz fusion, as trumpeter Gary Alesbrook pointed out on TikTok. In a post, he blends the track's beat with the melody from the song, "Jean Pierre," off of Miles Davis's jazz fusion record We Want Miles.
Jazz influence is undeniable during Doechii's stripped-back appearance at NPR's Tiny Desk in December, where she prepared jazzified arrangements of some of her biggest hits. Billboard praised her "jazz-tinged" performance, during which her charismatic rap and vocals are foregrounded against a tight all-woman band, including electric bass, keys, guitar, drums, back-up vocals, and two improvising horn players.
Whether it be Laufey's pop-Bossa Nova single, "From the Start," the groundbreaking jazz-hip hop mix on Kendrick Lamar's "Alright," or Lady Gaga's cover of the standard "The Lady is a Tramp" featuring Tony Bennet, it's clear: Pop musicians today aren't shy about mixing their influences—and jazz is one of them.
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