In spring last year, Maggie Rogers turned up for her music class at the The Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music with the song she was told to prepare as an assignment. She was not aware that music superstar Pharrell would be there, and would be critiquing the entire class on their work. Looking at her feet and trying not to throw up, we’re not sure if Maggie actually noticed the effect her music immediately had on the superstar, as he looked, at times, close to tears.

Maggie grew up in rural Alaska where she learned to play the banjo, but had just experienced a tricky 2 and a half years in which she struggled to find herself and didn’t write a single song.  “I just didn’t really know who I was,” she says, “so I didn’t really know what I sounded like. And so I did a lot of writing, and I studied abroad and I fell in love, and like … I got to be like any other college student. It was kind of nice to just not know for a little while.” Maggie found her voice eventually and, a week, before the class, wrote ‘Alaska’  in about 15 minutes.

Since then, Maggie’s career has taken off, her summer schedule is full of festivals, TV appearances and more and more amazing music. The video her beautiful song has been viewed over 5 million times with other in hot pursuit. Proof that when talent, hard work, timing and luck collide, magic truly happens.