Biography
Ansel Elgort, the New York-based singer and actor recognized for his starring turn in Baby Driver, also crafts dance-infused electronic pop. He entered the world in Manhattan during 1994 as the child of opera director Grethe Barrett Holby and fashion photographer Arthur Elgort, and his interest in the performing arts surfaced around age nine. Though he first pursued dance, acting soon captured his attention through studies at the Professional Performing Arts School, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, and Stagedoor Manor summer camp, where he accumulated initial stage credits in school mountings of Hairspray and Guys and Dolls. His first professional Off-Broadway appearance came in 2012 within Matt Charman’s Regrets, followed by a feature-film bow the next year in the remake of Carrie. Two 2014 collaborations with Shailene Woodley, however, in Divergent and The Fault in Our Stars, lifted him to wider visibility and paved the way for subsequent roles that included 2015’s Paper Towns and the 2017 Edgar Wright-directed Baby Driver.
Parallel to his screen work, Elgort maintains a deep commitment to music centered on electronic production. Recording at first under the name DJ Ansølo, he issued self-released remixes of tracks by Lana Del Rey, Zedd, and Galantis before unveiling his earliest original composition, “Unite,” in 2014. That same year brought “Totem” featuring Tom Staar, while 2015 yielded “To Life” featuring Too Many Zooz. Also in 2015 he inked a deal with Island/Universal Records and retired the DJ Ansølo alias. His first release on the label, “Home Alone,” appeared in 2016; the follow-up single “Thief” arrived in 2017, joined later that year by “You Can Count on Me” with rapper Logic and “All I Think About Is You.” The trap-inflected “Supernova” surfaced at the outset of 2018.
Parallel to his screen work, Elgort maintains a deep commitment to music centered on electronic production. Recording at first under the name DJ Ansølo, he issued self-released remixes of tracks by Lana Del Rey, Zedd, and Galantis before unveiling his earliest original composition, “Unite,” in 2014. That same year brought “Totem” featuring Tom Staar, while 2015 yielded “To Life” featuring Too Many Zooz. Also in 2015 he inked a deal with Island/Universal Records and retired the DJ Ansølo alias. His first release on the label, “Home Alone,” appeared in 2016; the follow-up single “Thief” arrived in 2017, joined later that year by “You Can Count on Me” with rapper Logic and “All I Think About Is You.” The trap-inflected “Supernova” surfaced at the outset of 2018.
Singles
