Before it had an official release date, “From The Start (Drill Remix)” had the one reaction that mattered most. Laufey heard jalenrekt’s flip on TikTok, smiled through its first switch-up, and let the camera catch the moment her delicate bossa nova song landed inside a drill beat.
The pairing should have sounded impossible. “From The Start” moves with brushed drums, walking bass and the easy sway of mid-century bossa nova. Laufey sings an unrequited crush with the conversational closeness of someone confessing too much to a friend. Even her scat break nods toward Chet Baker. The record is light on its feet, but emotionally cornered.
That tension helped make it enormous. Released in 2023 as the first single from Bewitched, “From The Start” introduced a mass audience to Laufey’s larger project: bringing jazz, classical music and the Great American Songbook into the emotional world of young listeners. It spread through TikTok without sanding off the old references. Instead, fans made those references feel current.
jalenrekt heard what could happen if the song’s restraint finally broke. His remix kept Laufey’s voice and the instantly recognizable melody, then put them over clipped percussion and heavy low end. The sweetness remained, but now it carried impact. Her vocal seemed to float while the beat hit underneath it.
That contrast was the hook. Drill remixes often work through surprise, but this one had more than novelty. Both sides of the record were built around rhythm and negative space. The bossa nova pulse did not disappear when the drums changed; it became something you could feel from another angle.
jalenrekt uploaded the independent version in July 2023. It crossed a million views as listeners carried it between YouTube, TikTok edits and dance clips. Then Laufey reacted publicly. There was no distant press statement and no carefully staged reveal—just the artist hearing her song transform in the same feed where everyone else had found it.
The reaction mattered because it made the remix feel less like an unauthorized side road and more like a conversation. By December, that conversation had become a record. “From The Start (Drill Remix)” was released officially through Laufey’s label, credited to jalenrekt, Laufey and Spencer Stewart, with jalenrekt named as producer.
What followed was not a short post-reaction spike. The remix has now passed 13.7 million streams on Spotify. Its official YouTube audio has more than 5.4 million views, while the original independent upload has another 1.5 million. It remains one of jalenrekt’s most-played records years after its release.
The timing gives those numbers more weight. Months later, Bewitched won the Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. Laufey had become the clearest example of how young audiences could embrace music rooted in jazz and classical tradition without treating it like homework. The drill remix belonged to that same borderless listening culture: a fan did not have to choose between softness and bass, or between Chet Baker and TikTok.
For jalenrekt, the breakthrough was not simply getting a famous artist to notice. It was proving that his version understood what made her song special. Laufey heard herself in the remix, even after everything around her voice had changed. Millions of listeners did too.
Streaming totals observed in August 2026 and continue to rise. Release credits are drawn from the official recording; Grammy context is reported by the Recording Academy.
