Billboard Women in Music 2026 Breakthrough honoree Zara Larsson opens up about her Midnight Sun lifestyle. Zara reflects on her journey as an artist since being signed at 14 years old, remixing “Stateside” with PinkPantheress (and how it blew up), Alysa Liu’s skating to “Stateside” at the Olympics, her advice to her younger self, viral moments and more.
Zara Larsson:
I’m living and breathing the Midnight Sun era, which is how I feel and how I want to look right now. I just embody it, and then people can join. It feels so fun to be honored as the Breakthrough of the Year by Billboard Women in Music, ’cause I’ve been doing this for a long time, but I feel like this year has really been an incredible year for me personally and in my career. To see that that’s being recognized from outside of my little bubble of where I work is so amazing. Moments for me, for the last year, have definitely been my collaboration with PinkPantheress for “Stateside.” And then, of course, Midnight Sun. Releasing that, seeing how people were reacting to it. It’s interesting because, you know, Billboard is also the charts, how people are, how much they’re buying and streaming and all of that. Midnight Sun, for me, has been just as successful as my previous releases before, but the biggest difference for me is that I feel like it’s everything around the song that people are, like, engaging with, like coming to my shows, you know? I finally am playing so much live, so seeing, like, real people coming to my shows in the venues and they dress up, or they make videos to my songs. I feel like people are engaging a lot more with my music, and that’s so fulfilling to me, because through all of this, I just really wanna connect with people. It’s been so incredible to see how it’s all coming together and I get to see people come into my world that I’ve built over the past year.
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