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Is Laufey jazz?

Context: Is Laufey jazz? - Adam Neely

My opinion is three-fold:

Is Laufey jazz? *Not quite*. Adam Neely's point on this front stands, but I believe he could've come up with better arguments (e.g. being original materials or not shouldn't really matter that much). To put it this way: Laufey is as much jazz (if not much less jazz) as Ivan Lins. (note: Ivan Lins is música popular brasileira.)
Is Laufey *saving* jazz? Definitely not. Jazz isn't dead, it doesn't need saving. There are still new musicians making new jazz, it's just that people who only uses Tiktok to discover new music aren't gonna come across any of them any time soon.
Is Adam Neely gatekeeping? No, although he probably could've structured his argument better. You would think by mentioning Samara Joy it would grant Adam at least some Political Correctness points but alas this time it's "Laufey 'haters' vs. Laufey fans" instead of "musician vs. the general left-leaning public".

I believe there's something very ingenuine about accusing people being gatekeeping in this case; it's another form of saying "it IS the thing because I SAID SO and whoever disagrees with me are bad people". Is her music bad? No, it's not bad, and no one is saying that it is bad; but when people insist that her music *is* jazz and disregard any argument that says otherwise, are they actually insisting "Laufey is jazz" or are they actually insisting "I listen to jazz and thus I am part of all the fancy things people associate jazz with"?

2023.9.26

well i guess no people speaking for this new Laufey artist would dare to counter the quote "why does it have to be jazz? why do you need that word?" because while they might not know what actually is jazz they sure as hell know why they are fighting this fight just to have the word.

A few tangent points:

Is modern jazz "out of touch with younger audience"? Before talking about being "out of touch" or not, I believe we should consider this question instead: why SHOULD jazz be in touch with this "younger audience" from its end in the first place? Why should *this* be considered a merit out of everything else?
Could Laufey be a gateway drug for younger people to listen to more jazz? I could see the pipeline working but I don't have high hope for this.
No, covering old jazz standards does not necessarily mean your music is jazz; no, working with renowned jazz musicians does not necessarily mean your music is jazz either. Anthrax has literally worked closely with Public Enemy but no one seems to consider them a hip hop group.

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