Daya

Grammy-winning American singer/songwriter Daya infuses her infectious pop creations with rich electronic textures. Over time she steadily asserted greater authority over her artistic direction and public persona, first breaking onto the charts while still a 16-year-old high-school junior whose sound echoed the combined sensibilities of Lorde and Alessia Cara. That same youthful vitality powered her breakthrough debut album Sit Still, Look Pretty in 2016, which yielded the multi-platinum single "Hide Away." She earned a Grammy for her featured turn on the Chainsmokers' 2016 track "Don't Let Me Down," after which she pivoted toward a more pronounced electronic aesthetic that shaped her 2021 EP The Difference and its hit "Bad Girl." Additional electronically driven singles followed in the early 2020s—"What If I Told You" in 2021, "Love You When You're Gone" in 2022, and "Juliene" in 2023—by which point she had established herself as a fully independent artist.

Born Grace Martine Tandon, a name whose meaning she honored by adopting the Hindi word "daya" for "grace" in tribute to her Indian grandfather, she grew up in the Pittsburgh suburb of Mount Lebanon. Piano instruction began at age three, followed by vocal training at ten. Songwriting emerged later, leading to a 2014 deal with Z-Entertainment on the strength of her early demos. In 2015 the single "Hide Away" gained traction through early online buzz, eventually charting worldwide and earning multi-platinum status. That same year she released her self-titled debut EP via Artbeatz. Both "Hide Away" and its double-platinum successor "Sit Still, Look Pretty" reached the Top 50 on the Billboard Hot 100, while the project itself debuted at number 14 on the Heatseekers chart. She later supplied vocals for the Chainsmokers' 2016 hit "Don't Let Me Down," which secured the Grammy for Best Dance Recording. Her full-length debut Sit Still, Look Pretty arrived later in 2016, climbing into the Top 40 in both the United States and Canada and ultimately achieving gold certification stateside and silver certification in the United Kingdom.

In 2017 she joined Gryffin and Illenium on "Feel Good" before issuing her own singles "Safe" and "New," the latter achieving modest success in the United States and Australia. This initiated a stretch of standalone releases, collaborative tracks, and EPs that continued for several years. Among the roughly dozen songs that surfaced around the turn of the decade, the 2019 electronic-dance number "Insomnia," the NOTD collaboration "Wanted," and "Keeping It in the Dark" from the 13 Reasons Why soundtrack all registered on global charts and streaming platforms. In 2021 she delivered her second EP The Difference, featuring the electro-pop track "First Time" and the Charlie Puth-assisted hit "Bad Girl." Also that year she released the non-album single "What If I Told You" and contributed "Evil" to the Blade Runner: Black Lotus anime soundtrack. June 2022 brought the sultry, dance-oriented "Love You When You're Gone," the opening track from her third EP In Between Dreams. In 2023 she announced her status as a fully independent artist, thereby securing full command of her music and image, and launched a regular schedule of new singles issued every few weeks, beginning with the trip-hop-inflected "Juliene" in June.