Speaker: Sarah Davison (British accent)

Believe it or not, there are people in this world with names as cool as Dua Lipa. It sounds like a stage name – like Bruno Mars, born Peter Gene Hernandez, or Elvis Costello, whose real name is Declan Patrick McManus – but it is not! Of course, a cool name is not enough to succeed as a pop superstar.

LOVE FOR LONDON

From an early age, Dua Lipa was determined to be a singer. Her father was a member of a rock band, and this must have influenced his daughter. Dua was born in London in 1995. She is of Kosovar-Albanian descent, and in Albanian, her name means ‘love’. At age nine, she enrolled in the prestigious Sylvia Young Theatre School. But a couple of years on, her parents decided to return to live in Kosovo’s capital, Pristina. It was not easy for the young Dua to leave London, so aged just fifteen she asked them for permission to return on her own. And she got it!

YOUTUBE START

Back in the UK, Dua Lipa waited tables at restaurants and served drinks at nightclubs, devoting the little spare time she had to uploading covers of famous songs onto YouTube. One of these songs caught the eye of a talent scout, and as soon as she was of legal age to do so Dua Lipa signed her first music contract.

THE DARK ART OF POP

When asked in an interview to say which artists, dead or alive, she would choose to form her own supergroup, Dua answered: “Madonna, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Prince and Michael Jackson.” It is a curious choice, given that two of them are painters! But it is appropriate for her musical style, which she defines as “dark pop.”

EMPOWERED

At first, Dua combined her musical career with modelling jobs, until she decided she “liked pizza too much.” This attitude can be found in her music and videos. Dua does not like to conform to what others expect of her, be it the canon of beauty or the role of the nice girl next door! As the title of some of her hit songs make clear, she’s ready to set New Rules (No.1 in the UK singles chart), and if you don’t like it, her reply would be something like IDGAF (an acronym for ‘I don’t give a fuck’.)