She’s got famous parents

Abrams’ last name could be an easy giveaway for sci-fi fans, but it might not ring a bell for others who aren’t too familiar with a galaxy far, far away or a certain Captain Kirk. The 25-year-old singer-songwriter is the eldest of three children of Emmy award-winning director and producer J. J. Abrams, best known for his sci-fi and action movies like Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Cloverfield, and Star Trek.

Meanwhile, her mother, Katie McGrath, is a former political aide turned television producer. The married couple are the brains behind Bad Robot, the production house responsible for blockbuster hits such as Westworld and Lost. Having a creative mind clearly runs in the Abrams household, and while Gracie might not have inherited her parents’ passion for filmmaking or TV (at least, for now), she does credit her father’s love for storytelling as the spark behind her songwriting.

The singer can play the drums

Abrams is known to be a multi-talented artist. She can sing, write, and play musical instruments. While her primary instruments are the obvious guitar and piano, she’s also quite skilled on the drums. In fact, the drum was the first instrument she started playing. At 8 years old, Abrams took drumming lessons, which she described as an “excuse to hit something really hard and get my feelings out” at the time. She even wrote her very first song on her drum kit, a response triggered by her frustration of losing her third-grade journal.

“It was aggressive,” she told W Magazine. “It was the feeling of expression in its purest form — like, I’d never want anyone to see this, but I felt better somehow.”

Her Minor EP inspired Olivia Rodrigo’s “drivers license”

In 2020, when the world stood at a standstill, Abrams did what other restless musicians could offer while stuck in lockdown — pour her heart out online. Released that year, her debut EP, Minor, is an intimate and unflinchingly honest look at past relationships. Heartache-fuelled bangers and tender piano ballads chronicle a lost love on the coming-of-age mini-album. Unknowingly, the emotional body of work and Abrams’ tell-it-like-it-is attitude became a fundamental source of inspiration for a future pop hit: “drivers license” by Olivia Rodrigo. The two had shared the same record label and eventually became acquainted after connecting via Instagram. “Olivia definitely didn’t need my help,” Abrams said of her peer in an interview. “She’s such a talent, and she’s such an empath.”

Her first-ever tour was performed from her bedroom

As a pop star who rose to fame during the pandemic era, performing for her fans in real life was a huge challenge at the time. However, thanks to technology, Abrams still managed to go on tour — albeit virtually, from the confines of her bedroom.

Titled the Minor Bedroom Shows, these special Zoom concerts invited fans from different cities, like London, Berlin, New York, and Sydney, for a cosy session with the singer. The virtual hangouts were limited to 100 attendees each time and were designed as a heartfelt, stripped-down, fan-focused experience where the audience could interact with Abrams directly and request songs for the singer to perform. As a fun homage to her first concert, a segment from her latest album tour, The Secret of Us, features a stage replica of the bedroom.

She scored opening-act gigs for Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo

When the world started to open up again, it was only natural for Abrams to seize the opportunity to embark on a real trek around the globe with some of her closest friends. She went from performing in her quiet bedroom behind a computer screen to leading cheering stadium crowds. The singer-songwriter opened for Olivia Rodrigo in 2022 at the latter’s Sour concert before going on to support her musical hero, Taylor Swift, on her extravagant, record-smashing Eras Tour. During that time, she also had the honour of sharing the stage with Swift herself. They’d performed several duets as part of the show’s Surprise Song highlight, which included an acoustic mashup of Abrams’ “I Love You, I’m Sorry” and Swift’s “Last Kiss” at their Vancouver stop.

She collaborated with Taylor Swift on a song

For a hardcore Swiftie like Abrams, touring with her idol is a dream come true. But releasing a song together feels like a destiny-fulfilled milestone. “us.”, a track the pair co-wrote and produced alongside Swift’s frequent collaborators Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff, appears on Abrams’ second studio album, The Secret of Us.

It opens as a gentle folksy tune that sounds like it could easily co-exist within Swift’s folklore and evermore universe. But as the melody gradually swells into a lush, sweeping cinematic climax, it becomes unmistakably Abrams — it’s rueful, melancholic, and full of passion, capturing the woes of heartbreak in its rawest form. “Writing this entire song from 2am to 6am was some of the most fun I’ve ever had in my life,” she wrote of the collab on her Instagram.

She’s already had 2 Grammy nominations

Since making her debut in 2019, the singer-songwriter has already earned two Grammy nods. Her 2023 debut LP Good Riddance, which features songs such as “Best”, “I Know It Won’t Work”, and “Where Do We Go Now?”, was considered for the Best New Artist award in 2024. She was up against Ice Spice, Jelly Roll, Fred again.., Coco Jones, The War and Treaty, and Noah Kahan, but the prize ultimately went to Victoria Monét.

She later received her second nomination for “us.” (together with Taylor Swift) in the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance category at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards. According to Abrams, she’d been on a phone call with her mother when she’d learned the news of her unexpected nomination. “I had absolutely negative a thousand expectations about being in the mix at all,” she recalls.