{"id":402459,"date":"2026-04-16T23:43:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T23:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/402459\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T23:43:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T23:43:14","slug":"stateside-tour-women-in-music-breakthrough-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/402459\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Stateside’, Tour, Women in Music, Breakthrough & More"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tZara Larsson<\/a> jumps on a Zoom from a Denver hotel room minutes after waking up from an afternoon nap. \u201cIt\u2019s two o\u2019clock,\u201d she says with a laugh, \u201cso it\u2019s time to start the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFresh-faced, friendly and thoughtful, Larsson, 28, is hours ahead of a tour stop in support of Midnight Sun, the 2025 album that\u2019s made her a new household name in the main pop girl zeitgeist. The project\u2019s title track earned Larsson her first-ever Grammy nod, for best dance<\/a> pop recording, which came on the heels of her opening slot on Tate McRae\u2019s 2025 Miss Possessive arena tour. Meanwhile, TikTok virality pushed her 2016 single \u201cLush Life\u201d back onto the Billboard Hot\u00a0100<\/a> a decade after its release, with the song now in its 17th week on the chart at press time. But her verse on the October remix of PinkPantheress\u2019 \u201cStateside\u201d \u2014 and the song\u2019s Lisa Frank-meets-Burberry music video released in January \u2014 turbocharged her career, with her profile rising even higher when U.S. figure skating gold medalist Alysa Liu skated to the remix at the 2026 Olympics Exhibition Gala in February. By late March, the track had hit No.\u00a06 on the Hot\u00a0100 and topped the Billboard Global\u00a0200<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\tWatch Billboard\u2019s Women in Music 2026 live on YouTube.com\/Billboard and Billboard.com on April 29, beginning at 9:30 p.m. ET\/6:30 p.m. PT. For more coverage on Women in Music, click here<\/a>.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s all part of a breakthrough more than a decade in the making. After winning the Swedish version of America\u2019s Got Talent in 2008 at age 10, Larsson released her debut album in 2014, clocking hits in Sweden and entering the Hot\u00a0100 in 2016 and 2019. But she has only now become a capital-P pop star.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think this year cemented me as not only a girl with popular songs,\u201d Larsson says, \u201cbut a girl worth talking about in pop culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Zara<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tZara Larsson photographed on March 7, 2026 at House of Blues Anaheim in Anaheim, Calif.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSami Drasin<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Zara<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSami Drasin<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re receiving the Breakthrough award after more than a decade making music. Has this year felt like a breakthrough?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt actually has. It is a fair recognition, because it\u2019s not \u201cbest new.\u201d Now with PinkPantheress and \u201cStateside,\u201d I\u2019m charting, and it\u2019s going so well. For the first time in a long time, I\u2019m on the Billboard charts. I\u2019m reaching so many new heights 10 years into my career, which is exciting and a \u00adtestament to never giving up. I feel like I have so much more to reach and do and \u00adexperience.<\/p>\n

\n\tHas your life changed in practical ways with all the success? What looks different today than it did a year ago?<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019ve thought a lot about that, and it\u2019s absolutely nothing. I like that I get more opportunities. [The success] has given me the opportunity to work with more of the women I really want to work with. There\u2019s more eyeballs on me. But I\u2019m the same. I do the same things. It feels the same internally.<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you feel anything shifting?<\/p>\n

\n\tRight now, I\u2019m on this club and theater tour that we booked a year ago. It\u2019s very intimate, and it feels like the start of something new. I was just talking to my sister and my friend who I always go to Coachella with, and they were like, \u201cDo you want security for this year\u2019s Coachella?\u201d I was like, \u201cHell no. What? That\u2019s so weird.\u201d They were like, \u201cWe think you might need it.\u201d I don\u2019t like the thought of needing security to do things I\u2019ve been doing my whole adult life, but time will tell. Right now, it feels very normal, and that\u2019s nice, because I am so happy with what I do, and I\u2019m really proud of what I\u2019ve made.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Zara<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSami Drasin<\/p>\n

\n\tYour pop star essence is so complete, with the music, the dancing, the outfits, the makeup. Was there a moment when you felt all those elements click into place and really become Zara World?<\/p>\n

\n\tI do feel a huge shift, but it\u2019s coming from within. This change really came with the creation of Midnight Sun. Sometimes I think of my career like this car I\u2019ve been sitting in. I\u2019ve known where we\u2019ve been heading, but I\u2019ve been in the back seat. With this album, I was like, \u201cGuys, I feel like I should drive.\u201d I\u2019m finally writing all of my music. I\u2019m part of the visuals, the outfits, my live shows. My confidence grew so much, and I started surrounding myself with peers, friends and people my age.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow has that made a difference for you?<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019ve always been the youngest in the room. Starting so young, I\u2019ve been surrounded by amazing adults who\u2019ve always wanted the best for me, but it\u2019s hard to find your confidence and your voice in a room filled with people who\u2019ve had 15 years more experience. But now, I\u2019ve had that much experience. It was like I woke up one day and was surrounded by people who were my friends. I made this album with my friends like Margo\u00a0XS, Eliana [the artist better known as Eli] and Uzo [the singer-songwriter-producer better known as MNEK, who Larsson has collaborated with frequently over the years]. We\u2019re all equal in where we are in life; our cultural references are so similar. That gave me confidence to voice my opinion louder.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow did the \u201cStateside\u201d remix happen?<\/p>\n

\n\tI had DM\u2019d PinkPantheress, like, \u201cQueeeeen.\u201d I was just feeling inspired by so many of the girls who were killing it in the dance and pop scenes. She was like, \u201cOh, my God, you\u2019re a queen, and by the way, I\u2019m doing this remix album. Would you like to hop on?\u201d She literally had [my finished part] in her inbox two days later, because I was serious about it.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt came out, like, a week later, and I never could have guessed what it would do. I\u2019ve had big songs early in my career, but I haven\u2019t connected on a personal or cultural level. People knew about my songs, but they didn\u2019t necessarily know about me. This year has been so fun with people getting to know me, and that feature was a big element of being part of culture and what people are talking about. Then when Alysa [Liu] skated to our song, that felt like such a moment. It felt like history. That\u2019s what gets me going.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Zara<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSami Drasin<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story appears in the April 18, 2026, issue of Billboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zara Larsson jumps on a Zoom from a Denver hotel room minutes after waking up from an afternoon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[638,93,24007,821,61,60,709,278,176589],"class_list":{"0":"post-402459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-dance","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-genre-dance","11":"tag-genre-pop","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-magazine","15":"tag-music","16":"tag-women-in-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}