Lucy Dacus

Years before she was winning Grammys and performing on Saturday Night Live with her supergroup boygenius, Lucy Dacus was a budding songwriter in Richmond, Virginia. Born in May 1995, Dacus was adopted and raised devoutly Christian in the suburb of Mechanicsville. She was writing songs by the age of eight, soaking up albums in her dad’s CD collection like Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits, Led Zeppelin I, and David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. “When I heard ‘Five Years’ I just started crying,” she told us in 2018. 

Dacus briefly studied film at Virginia Commonwealth University before dropping out, working at a photo lab while working on music. She released her debut, No Burden, through the small local label EggHunt Records in 2016, which resulted in a bidding war among more than 20 labels (she signed with indie mainstays Matador). She followed that up with 2018’s Historian, which kicked off with the now-classic, nearly seven-minute breakup anthem “Night Shift.” The record was praised by critics and expanded her fanbase, and put Dacus on the map as one of the strongest songwriters of her generation.

At the end of that year, Dacus, Phoebe Bridgers, and Julien Baker found themselves on a triple bill for a fall tour. They envisioned dropping a single to promote the shows, but found themselves recording six songs once they gathered. Boygenius’ self-titled EP — containing the beloved tracks “Bite the Hand,” “Me & My Dog,” and “Salt in the Wound” — turned the trio into indie rock stars. Five years later, they reunited for their 2023 debut LP, The Record. It catapulted the band into the mainstream, turning them into queer icons and further expanding their intensely devoted fanbase. They landed on the cover of Rolling Stone, played to sold-out arenas, and earned six Grammy nominations, winning three.

Before that, Dacus released her third album, the magnificent Home Video, in 2021. It’s a cohesive and poignant documentation of her upbringing in Richmond, evoking her hero Bruce Springsteen’s The River. Songs like “Thumbs” and “VBS” instantly rocketed to the top of her catalog. “I’ve always valued honesty, but a lot of these are just note-for-note things that happened in my life,” she told RS at the time.

In March 2025, Dacus released her fourth album, Forever Is a Feeling. The record features incisive songs packed with the emotional gut-punches she’s known for, and chronicles her falling in love with her boygenius bandmate Julien Baker. After putting out a call on social media for “hot mascs,” Dacus’ video for “Best Guess” featured models including Cara Delevingne, Muna’s Naomi McPherson, and Towa Bird.

Throughout her career, Dacus has spoken openly against the “sad girl” stereotype. “I just want me and my friends to survive,” she told us. “When you internalize it, your personality is sadness, which is a lot of the time tied to depression, which a lot of the time is tied to detachment from life. I want the most joy that I can get, and I want that for everyone that I love. But just on a personal level, I don’t want to be pigeonholed in that. And it’s not true. Shut up. I try to write more nuanced things than that.” — Angie Martoccio