Dua Lipa

Dua Lipa - Quick Facts

Profile Overview of Dua Lipa

Dua Lipa ( DOO-ə LEE-pə;; born 22 August 1995) is an English singer and songwriter. Her accolades include seven Brit Awards and three Grammy Awards.

This profile of Dua Lipa covers Early Life and Family Background, Career and Rise to Fame, 2019–2022: Future Nostalgia, 2023–present: Acting debut and Radical Optimism and Fashion ventures.

Lipa worked as a model before venturing into music and signing with Warner Bros. Records in 2014. She released her eponymous debut album in 2017, which peaked at number three on the UK Albums Chart and spawned the singles "Be the One", "IDGAF", and the UK number-one single "New Rules". She was honoured with the Brit Awards for British Female Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act in 2018. Her second UK number-one single, "One Kiss" with Calvin Harris, was the best-selling song of 2018 in the UK and won the Brit Award for Song of the Year. She later won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist and Best Dance Recording for "Electricity" featuring Silk City in 2019.

Lipa's second album, Future Nostalgia (2020), became her first UK number-one album and peaked in the top-three in the US. Its lead single, "Don't Start Now", scored the longest top-ten stay for a British female artist on the UK Singles Chart and ranked in the top five on the US Billboard Hot 100 year-end chart of 2020. The album's success continued with the follow-up singles "Physical", "Break My Heart", and "Levitating", with the latter topping the Billboard year-end Hot 100 chart of 2021 and receiving a Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) Diamond certification in the US. Future Nostalgia won the Brit Award for British Album of the Year and the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album.

Lipa later scored her third and fourth UK number-one singles with the 2021 Elton John duet "Cold Heart (Pnau remix)" and "Dance the Night" from the soundtrack of the film Barbie (2023), wherein she also made her acting debut. Lipa released her third studio album, Radical Optimism (2024), which debuted atop the UK Albums Chart and was preceded by the UK top-ten singles "Houdini", "Training Season", and "Illusion". She also had a supporting role in the 2024 spy film Argylle.

Early Life and Family Background of Dua Lipa

Dua Lipa was born on 22 August 1995, in London, England, the eldest child of Kosovo Albanian parents Anesa (née Rexha) and Dukagjin Lipa from Pristina, FR Yugoslavia (present-day Kosovo). She has a sister and a brother. The name Dua was her grandmother's suggestion, and means "love" in Albanian. Her maternal grandmother is of Bosniak descent. Her father's ancestry can be traced back to the city of Peja, Kosovo. Both of her grandfathers were historians.

Lipa was musically influenced by her father, who was the lead singer and guitarist of the Kosovan rock band Oda. Her father continued to play music at home, including his own compositions and songs of artists such as David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Radiohead, Sting, the Police, and Stereophonics. Dua Lipa began singing at the age of five.

Lipa grew up in West Hampstead, London. She attended Fitzjohn's Primary School and her music lessons there included the cello. When she auditioned to enter the school choir, the teacher told her that she could not sing. At the age of nine, she began weekend singing lessons at the Sylvia Young Theatre School. Lipa moved with her family to Pristina after Kosovo declared independence in 2008. There she attended Mileniumi i Tretë School, learned more about the Albanian language, and considered a music career.

At age 15, Lipa moved back alone to London and shared a flat with a family friend. At Parliament Hill School she passed her A-Levels, then re-entered Sylvia Young Theatre School part-time. She uploaded her own songs to SoundCloud and YouTube. She began posting videos of herself covering songs such as "If I Ain't Got You" (2004) by Alicia Keys and "Beautiful" (2002) by Christina Aguilera on YouTube. Lipa modelled with Topshop and signed with a modelling agency, helping her land a role as a singer in an ITV advertisement for The X Factor in 2013, covering Sister Sledge's 1979 song "Lost in Music". She acquired a producer and a manager.

Career and Rise to Fame of Dua Lipa

In 2013, Lipa signed a contract with Tap Management, directed by Ben Mawson and Ed Millett, while working as a waitress in a cocktail bar. Lipa was introduced to Mawson by her lawyer, who discouraged her from signing another publishing deal that was offered to her. They then offered her a monthly salary to leave her job and focus on recording music. During one of the sessions Lipa co-wrote the song "Hotter than Hell", which led to her signing a record deal with Warner Bros. Records in 2014. Millett retrospectively elaborated: "Dua was really smart – she signed to Warner Bros. Partly because they didn't have a big female pop artist and they needed one. They really wanted her, so she had the focus of the team from day one."

In August 2015, Lipa released her first single, "New Love", produced by Emile Haynie and Andrew Wyatt. Her second single, "Be the One", was issued to European success in October 2015, reaching number one in Belgium, Poland and Slovakia, as well as charting in the top ten in over eleven European territories. In Australia and New Zealand, the song became an airplay success, reaching numbers 6 and 20 respectively. In November 2015, she was revealed as one of the acts to appear on the BBC Sound of... 2016 long list.

Her first tour in the UK and Europe began in January 2016, and concluded in early December 2016. On 18 February 2016, Lipa released her third single, "Last Dance", followed by "Hotter than Hell" on 6 May. The latter was successful particularly in the UK, where it peaked at number 15. On 26 August, her fifth overall single, "Blow Your Mind (Mwah)", was released, peaking at number 30 in the UK. It became the singer's first entry on the US Billboard Hot 100, debuting at number 72. The song also topped the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart and reached number 23 on the Billboard Mainstream Top 40 chart.

Lipa was featured on Sean Paul's single "No Lie", released in November 2016, which reached number ten in the UK. The song became a top-ten hit in ten countries six years after its release, and it became Sean Paul's most-streamed song as of December 2022. The music video (directed by Tim Nackashi) surpassed 1 billion views on YouTube in April 2022. The following month, a documentary about Lipa named See in Blue was commissioned by The Fader. In January 2017, Lipa won the EBBA Public Choice Award, and released the single "Scared to Be Lonely", a collaboration with Martin Garrix, reaching number 14 in the UK.

Source: adapted from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dua_Lipa), text available under CC BY-SA 4.0.