Dua Lipa

• 1. Introduction

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  In the week beginning the 15th of May 2020, Dua Lipa's album Future Nostalgia sat at number one on the UK chart with only 7,317 sales. No chart-topping album this century has sold fewer copies in a single week. That modest number belongs to an English singer and songwriter, born in 1995, who now counts seven Brit Awards and three Grammy Awards among her honours. It hints at how unusual her route to the top has been. How does a child who grew up between London and Pristina become a pop star? How does a cocktail bar waitress end up with a record deal? And how did she come to own every one of her own recordings?

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• 2. Two Cities

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  Dua Lipa was born on the 22nd of August 1995 in London, the eldest of three children. Her parents, Anesa and Dukagjin Lipa, are Kosovo Albanians from Pristina. She has a sister named Rina and a brother named Gjin. Her grandmother suggested the name Dua, which means love in Albanian. Both of her grandfathers were historians.

  Her father, Dukagjin, was the lead singer and guitarist of the Kosovan rock band Oda. At home he kept playing, mixing his own compositions with songs by David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Radiohead, Sting, the Police and Stereophonics. Dua began singing at the age of five.

  At Fitzjohn's Primary School, near the West Hampstead home where she grew up, she took cello lessons. When she auditioned for the school choir, though, the teacher told her she could not sing. At nine she began weekend singing lessons at the Sylvia Young Theatre School.

  In 2008 Kosovo declared independence, and the family moved to Pristina. There she attended Mileniumi i Tretë School, learned more about the Albanian language and started to consider a career in music.

  At fifteen she came back to London on her own and shared a flat with a family friend. She passed her A-Levels at Parliament Hill School and returned part-time to the Sylvia Young Theatre School. She uploaded her own songs to SoundCloud and YouTube, along with covers of Alicia Keys's "If I Ain't Got You" from 2004 and Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" from 2002. Modelling for Topshop and signing with a modelling agency then helped her win a singing part in a 2013 ITV advertisement for The X Factor, covering Sister Sledge's 1979 song "Lost in Music".

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• 3. From Waitress to Warner

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  In 2013 Lipa was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar when she signed with Tap Management, run by Ben Mawson and Ed Millett. Her lawyer had introduced her to Mawson and had urged her to turn down a different publishing deal. The managers offered her a monthly salary so she could quit the bar and concentrate on recording.

  During one of those sessions she co-wrote "Hotter than Hell". The song led to a record deal with Warner Bros. Records in 2014. Millett later explained her choice, saying she signed with Warner "partly because they didn't have a big female pop artist and they needed one." He added that the label "really wanted her" and gave her the focus of the team from day one.

  In August 2015 she released her first single, "New Love", produced by Emile Haynie and Andrew Wyatt. Her second single, "Be the One", arrived in October 2015 and reached number one in Belgium, Poland and Slovakia. It also entered the top ten in more than eleven European territories. In Australia and New Zealand it became an airplay hit, peaking at numbers 6 and 20.

  In November 2015 she appeared on the long list for the BBC's Sound of... 2016. Her first tour of the UK and Europe ran from January to early December 2016. "Last Dance" came out on the 18th of February 2016, and "Hotter than Hell" followed on the 6th of May, peaking at number 15 in the UK. "Blow Your Mind (Mwah)" appeared on the 26th of August. It reached number 30 in the UK and gave her a first entry on the US Billboard Hot 100, debuting at number 72.

  In November 2016 she featured on Sean Paul's "No Lie", which reached number ten in the UK. Six years after its release the song became a top-ten hit in ten countries, and its video passed one billion YouTube views in April 2022.

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• 4. The New Rules Year

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  In January 2017 Lipa won the EBBA Public Choice Award and released "Scared to Be Lonely" with Martin Garrix, which reached number 14 in the UK. Her self-titled debut album came out on the 2nd of June 2017. Its sixth single, "New Rules", became her first UK number one the following month.

  No female solo artist had topped the UK chart since Adele's "Hello" in 2015. "New Rules" also reached number two in Australia, number six in the US and number seven in Canada. Its video has streamed more than three billion times on YouTube.

  She played Glastonbury Festival in June 2017 and appeared on the BBC's Later... with Jools Holland in October. By December, Spotify had named her the most streamed woman of the year in the UK. Four of her singles reached the UK top ten in 2017. They were "Be the One", "New Rules", "No Lie" and "Bridge over Troubled Water", a charity single for the families of victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.

  In January 2018 the Brit Awards gave her five nominations, more than any other artist that year. It was the first time a female artist had received five. She won British Female Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act, and she performed at the O2 Arena in London on the 21st of February.

  On the 6th of April 2018 she released "One Kiss" with Calvin Harris. It reached number one on the 20th of April and stayed there for eight consecutive weeks, becoming the biggest-selling song in the UK that year. She sang at the opening ceremony of the 2018 UEFA Champions League Final in Kyiv on the 26th of May. Liverpool supporters adopted "One Kiss" as a club anthem after big victories, and she now calls herself an "honorary Liverpool supporter". That same year the American host Wendy Williams mispronounced her name, and fans cheerfully began calling her "Dula Peep", a nickname Lipa embraced.

  The Office for National Statistics counted 63 babies named Dua in England and Wales in 2017. By 2019 the figure had doubled to 126. In May 2018 British Vogue put her on its first list of the 25 most influential British women, and at 22 she was the youngest.

  On the 9th of September 2018 she released "Electricity" with Silk City, the duo of Mark Ronson and Diplo. It would win her the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording in 2019, alongside Best New Artist.

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• 5. Future Nostalgia

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  In January 2019 Lipa told interviewers she had spent the previous year writing her second album. She promised a "nostalgic" pop record that "feels like a dancercise class". Her lead single "Don't Start Now" peaked at number two on both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100. In the UK it earned the longest top-ten run by a British female artist, and the longest for any song that never reached number one.

  The album and its tour were announced in December 2019. "Physical" followed on the 30th of January 2020, and "Break My Heart" on the 25th of March. Future Nostalgia was released on the 27th of March to widespread critical acclaim. Four of its singles entered the UK top ten.

  On release she became the first British woman since Vera Lynn, in 1952, to have three top-ten singles in one calendar year. "Levitating" later broke that record. It topped the Billboard year-end Hot 100 chart for 2021 and earned an RIAA Diamond certification in the US. The album won the Brit Award for British Album of the Year and the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album.

  On the 13th of August 2020 she released a "Levitating" remix with Madonna and Missy Elliott. It led Club Future Nostalgia, a remix collection by the Blessed Madonna and Mark Ronson. A second remix with DaBaby arrived on the 2nd of October. On the 27th of November she played a livestream concert called Studio 2054, with guests including Kylie Minogue and Elton John. It earned a Guinness World Record for tickets sold to a livestreamed show by a solo woman. Spotify reported Future Nostalgia as 2020's most streamed album by a woman.

  Lockdown also produced a small viral story. Ben Howell, a DJ in Glasgow, remixed her song "Hallucinate" with the BBC news theme in April 2020. It passed a million views on YouTube. BBC Radio 1's Greg James called it "a certified banger" and joked that it should replace the real theme at once.

  Success brought legal trouble. On the 1st of March 2022 the reggae band Artikal Sound System sued Lipa and Warner Records, saying "Levitating" resembled their 2017 song "Live Your Life". That suit was dropped with prejudice in June 2023. A second claim came from songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer, who pointed to their 1979 disco song "Wiggle and Giggle All Night".

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• 6. Barbie and the Masters

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  On the 13th of August 2021 Lipa released "Cold Heart (Pnau remix)" with Elton John, the lead single from his album The Lockdown Sessions. It reached number one in the UK on the 15th of October, her third chart-topper. In February 2022 she launched Service95, a weekly lifestyle newsletter, with a companion podcast called Dua Lipa: At Your Service. That month a source told Variety she had parted ways with TaP Management, her longtime management company.

  On the 26th of May 2023 she released "Dance the Night", the lead single from the Barbie film soundtrack. She also made her acting debut in the film, playing Mermaid Barbie. The song became her fourth UK number one.

  In November 2023 she completed a deal with her former publishers, TaP Music, to take full ownership of her songs, music and publishing rights. This included all her master recordings. By February 2024 that catalogue had reached 40 billion streams.

  On the 9th of November 2023 she released "Houdini", the lead single from her third album. She named Kevin Parker, who produced it with Danny L Harle, as one of her "core collaborators". "Training Season" followed on the 15th of February 2024 and "Illusion" on the 11th of April. Radical Optimism arrived on the 3rd of May 2024 and debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart. "Houdini" topped the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart for 17 weeks and won a 2024 Billboard Music Award. She also played LaGrange in the spy comedy Argylle that year.

  In June 2024 she closed the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury on the 28th, after a run of European arena dates that included the Arena of Nîmes, the Waldbühne in Berlin and the Pula Arena. On the 17th of October 2024 she sang at the Royal Albert Hall with the Heritage Orchestra for the ITV special An Evening with Dua Lipa. Her first live album, recorded there, came out on the 6th of December.

  In May 2026 she filed a $15m lawsuit against Samsung over the unauthorised use of her image on television boxes. She also began a relationship with the British actor Callum Turner in January 2024. They announced their engagement in a July 2025 British Vogue cover story and married on the 31st of May 2026 in a civil ceremony at Marylebone Town Hall in London.

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• 7. Sound and Style

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  In a 2018 GQ interview, Lipa described her taste in pop this way: "My idea of pop has been P!nk and Christina Aguilera and Destiny's Child and Nelly Furtado." She also cites Kylie Minogue, Prince, Jamiroquai, Kendrick Lamar and Chance the Rapper. For Future Nostalgia she drew on teenage favourites including Gwen Stefani, Madonna, Moloko, Blondie and Outkast.

  Critics have called her voice mezzo-soprano or contralto, with a husky, low register. Her music is described as dance-pop, synth-pop and nu-disco, and she calls her own style "dark pop". She usually arrives at the studio with a concept and builds each song with her co-writers. Billboard's Lyndsey Havens credited her with leading disco's revival in 2020 through "Don't Start Now".

  After her performance of "New Rules" at the 2018 Brit Awards, a YouTube comment read "I love her lack of energy, go girl give us nothing". It became an internet meme at her expense. Lipa has said the mockery pushed her to improve her stage presence.

  In March 2017 she became a global ambassador for the shoe company Foot Locker. In 2019 Pepe Jeans London named her its first musician ambassador, and she designed three collections for them. The last, "Denim decades", was inspired by every decade since the brand began selling denim. Yves Saint Laurent made her the face of its Libre fragrance in 2019, and in February 2024 she became global ambassador for YSL Beauty.

  She made her runway debut at Versace's Spring/Summer 2022 show at Milan Fashion Week, walking to tracks from Future Nostalgia.

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• 8. Causes and Citizenship

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  In 2016 Lipa and her father created the Sunny Hill Foundation to raise money for people in Kosovo facing financial hardship. In August 2018 she organised the Sunny Hill Festival for it. Pristina's mayor, Shpend Ahmeti, gave her the Pristina Key, the first ever awarded. She hosted the festival again in 2019, with Miley Cyrus on the bill.

  After the 2019 Albania earthquake, she sold "Pray for Albania" t-shirts, made with Albanian designers, with all proceeds going to affected families. In July 2021 the foundation joined Tirana's "Adopt a Kindergarten" project to rebuild a damaged school. The result, finished in October 2021, was named Sunny Hill Kindergarten. Her wider charity work includes a UNICEF visit in April 2019 to a refugee camp in Beirut, and a virtual 2021 Elton John AIDS Foundation party that raised US$3 million.

  On the 12th of February 2018 she raised a rainbow flag while singing "Be the One" at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles. At that year's Brit Awards she wore a white rose dress in support of Time's Up. In September 2018 security removed fans from her Shanghai concert for allegedly waving rainbow flags, and she said she was proud of them. She was headliner and host of the 2020 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade.

  Her posts have also drawn fire. In July 2020 she shared a banner showing a map of Greater Albania, a symbol associated with extreme Albanian nationalism. Critics accused her of ethnic nationalism. She replied that people had misinterpreted the post, and that she completely rejects ethnic separatism.

  On the 13th of November 2022 she denied ever negotiating to play the FIFA World Cup opening ceremony, citing Qatar's human rights record. In April 2026 it was reported that Lipa and Service95 had helped pay for a pickup truck of medical aid for a Ukrainian medical battalion.

  In August 2022 Kosovo's president, Vjosa Osmani, named her an Honorary Ambassador of Kosovo. On the 27th of November 2022 Albania's president, Bajram Begaj, granted her Albanian citizenship, a day before the country's 110th independence celebrations. On the 31st of July 2025 Osmani granted her Kosovar citizenship. Lipa speaks Albanian fluently and calls her dual identity her strength.

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