“Music Is How I Survive”: Singer-Songwriter LAYYI On Creative Control, Vulnerability And Her Debut Album

For Singaporean singer-songwriter LAYYI, music is less about having all the answers and more about making sense of the questions and emotions. As an independent artist, she writes candidly about the messy, often contradictory parts of being human. As she prepares to release her debut studio album Love(?), LAYYI is entering a new chapter that asks not only what it means to be heard, but also what it means to stay true to the voice behind the music.

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Who or what shaped your early understanding and passion for music?

My mum did. She and her entire family loved the arts. I grew up with a piano and a guitar even though I barely had any lessons. There was a lot of karaoke singing at home or during Chinese New Year gatherings. My cousins and siblings all play an instrument and/or can draw or paint. One of them even has a master’s in music. Then at 12, I started going to church, where every young person seemed to carry a guitar over their shoulder like it was nothing. That environment pulled me further in, and I never really looked back.

Who are your biggest music inspirations?

I love John Mayer. I love his music, but also his perspective on it and the industry. I love the way he speaks about music, the music industry, and other artists’ work with humility. I also came of age in the early 2000s, that golden, chaotic mix of R&B, pop-punk, and pop: Paramore, Green Day, Simple Plan, OneRepublic, Ne-Yo, Rihanna, Usher, Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake. I think all of that still lives somewhere in my music. Beyond that, I look up to NIKI, Olivia Rodrigo, SZA, Daniel Caesar, and RAYE—artists who write like the truth matters more than the performance of it.

As an artist who writes her own music, could you walk us through your creative process, from initial thought to the final result?

It always starts with a message. Something I need to say before I fully understand why. Sometimes it arrives as a phrase scribbled in my Notes app, sometimes a line torn from my journal. From there I build outward, usually on guitar, letting melody and chords give the words a home. Once a song exists in a shape I love, I listen to it on repeat, sanding down the edges until it feels true. When it’s fully written, I send it to my producers, and we shape the sound together. I record my vocals alone at home. And then, as they say, the rest is history.

In 2024, you went viral for singing “I’ll Be Blue” to strangers. What made you decide to take your music beyond traditional stages and share it directly with people?

I was at one of my lowest points at that time. I felt like giving up on music and life in general, and I felt like this song had ”met” me where i needed it most and helped anchor me through that shaky season. Because I had so little left to lose, I found an unexpected courage—a kind of well, why not?. I had seen a similar scripted format online, done by someone in the States, and adapted it into my own unscripted version and gave it a whirl.

Was I terrified? Yes—I’m an introvert, and this was the opposite of comfortable. But I truly had nothing left to lose. And instead of being bitter and worried about my songs not “reaching” people online, I decided to do something about it and actually bring the music to real faces and souls, witness how it impacts people, and have no regrets. It is still one of the most fulfilling experiences of my career to date.

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After seeing strangers connect with a song born from such a personal place, did it change how you view your role as an artist?

It did. It anchored me further in my values and my purpose, and it showed me, clearly, what I actually love doing. Music is about people, about community. I think I lose myself in that idea often, because I’m not naturally good at building community, or even belonging to one. I’ve been something of a lone ranger my whole life, and one of the hardest parts of this career is learning to build a community of people willing to go on this journey with me. It’s something I both fear and don’t fully know how to do. But I’m realising I can do it, even if it looks different than I imagined. Maybe it’s one person at a time—serendipitous meetings with the right people at the right time, and a great deal of patience.

What motivates you to express yourself so vulnerably to your listeners?

Music is how I survive. It’s how I process, how I heal, how I let myself feel and stop apologising for it. I don’t know another way to express myself except as my most honest self. Maybe that’s why I tend to overshare, why I wear my heart so openly in real life too. I can’t own my work any other way than in full detail, in full essence. And I believe honesty is what gives art its weight.

What kind of conversations do you hope your work sparks?

I hope it sparks introspective conversations with themselves first. Who am I, what am I doing with this life, why am I here, and how can I move on from here and be better? And if they don’t yet dare to have these conversations with someone else, that they’d at least be comforted by the fact that they’re not alone, and we can all navigate this complicated life together. 

As an independent artist, you are involved in every part of your music. What does having creative control mean to you?

Oh, it means everything. Saying what I want to say, exactly how I want to say it, is cathartic—and it’s what makes this sustainable. It’s what let’s the things that make me different rise above the noise. I love steering the boat, and I’m not sure there will ever be a day I stop wanting to. But it also means wearing every hat, and I simply can’t do it all at once. Sacrifices come at every turn, so I have to keep my priorities clear—otherwise I risk losing the reason I started in the first place. Slowly, I’m building a team of like-minded people around me. Until then, I do my best to sustain myself and keep faith.

What has been the most rewarding part of building your career on your own terms?

The evidence of my own growth, honestly, and the people I’ve met and grown alongside along the way. This career has challenged me in ways no other job could. I’m not naturally an optimistic person, but walking this path has given me an unexpected sense of wonder and hope, even as it forces me to fight for both. The further I go, the more I realise the people I do this with are just as essential to sustaining the journey as anything else. I wouldn’t be here without those who believed in me when I had nothing to show for myself, and my goal now is to give back to them through this career. It’s as much a team effort as it is an individual hustle.

You’re now releasing your first studio album. What does this album represent about where you are in your life right now?

It represents the tension between breaking away from the mould and still wanting to belong somewhere. Looking back at my EP Life(?), and the one before it, I notice I tend to write in a kind of gradient—rough to soft, dark to light, death to hope. I think that’s how I confront the things that harden me in this world, while still fighting to keep my heart soft through it. This album is my first real attempt at love songs, but underneath that, it’s a journey of identity, hope, and healing. I hope that by the end of it, I’ve grown a little more hopeful about love, and healed a little more from whatever’s kept me from letting good things in.

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What is the best advice you’ve ever been given?

It’s not advice someone gave me, it’s something I tell myself, and it’s carried me: “Your life might be a miracle, but it’s on purpose.” I’m used to just surviving, so getting this far already feels like a miracle to me. But miracles can be mistaken for coincidence, for luck, and living only inside that idea shortchanges me from dreaming bigger, from pursuing abundance. Believing I’m meant to be here is a real challenge for me, but it’s what lets me hope for the future and ask for more—believing my life is meant for something bigger, for myself and beyond myself.

Photographer: Athirah Annissa
Art Direction: Alice Chua
Styling: Gracia Phang
Makeup: Laselle Lee using Judydoll Beauty
Hair: Dorene Low/ Tress & Curvy using Balmain Hair Couture, assisted by Jane Bok/ Tress & Curvy