Claire Elise Boucher, known professionally as Grimes, is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Her early work has been described as extending from "lo-fi R&B" to futuristic dance-pop and has incorporated influences from electronic music, hip hop, and rock. Her lyrics often touch on science fiction and feminist themes. She has released five studio albums.

Grimes was born Claire Elise Boucher in a wealthy Vancouver, British Columbia neighborhood, on March 17, 1988, the eldest child of Sandy Garossino, a former Crown prosecutor and arts advocate and Maurice Boucher, a former banker who works "in the business side of biotech." She is of French Canadian (including Québécois), and Italian descent. She has occasionally said she has Ukrainian heritage, referring to her paternal grandmother, who is from an ethnic German family from Romania and Ukraine.

Grimes's brother Mac Boucher has played a role in creating a number of her music videos including "Violence," "Go," "Realiti," and "Venus Fly," among others. She and her stepbrother, who raps under the name Jay Worthy, collaborated on the single "Christmas Song", released on the Rough Trade bonus disc of her Visions album.

In 2009, Grimes and a friend attempted to sail down the Mississippi River to New Orleans from Minneapolis in a houseboat they built. Following several mishaps, including engine trouble and encounters with law enforcement, the houseboat was impounded by the city of Minneapolis. Grimes claims that elements of the story were exaggerated in the newspapers that reported on it at the time. The adventure has been turned into an animated video narrated by T-Bone Burnett.