I am literally getting thrown into life right now. Dua Lipa is thinking about her Saturn return as she says this. She sheepishly admits that her love for the show Californication made her want to see this street before she ever visited Los Angeles. Lipa pulled up to lunch alone, weaving through once-packed tables in her tweed car coat, T-shirt, jeans, and sunglasses. Her hair, dyed a deep, mulled-wine red, makes her stick out immediately โ which might be why the owner, who knows her dad and is also of Albanian descent, sends over a free dessert.
But in between such big moments and celebrations, Lipa has been figuring out a lot about herself. Her highly anticipated third album is due later this year, and it captures a period of major changes in her life, including the end of a relationship and her forays into dating.
She also parted ways with the management firm that represented her for a decade and bought back the rights to her music. Lipa may have already been more resilient than she realized. Look no further than her origin story: At 15, she famously persuaded her family to let her leave Kosovo and moved back to London, where she was born, completely alone.
She finished school, passed her A-levels, and began waiting tables and modeling while seeking out a team and label to get her music career off the ground. Before she turned 20, she was signed. In the years leading up to and following the release of her self-titled debut, Lipa hustled in the studio and on the road, playing festivals and opening for Troye Sivan, Bruno Mars, and Coldplay.
Then, in , her hyper-glam disco revival Future Nostalgia became a pandemic blockbuster that climbed the charts and launched her into main-pop-girl territory. The album was a rebel yell for Lipa. It became an unlikely soundtrack for millions of people during lockdown, and made disco a ubiquitous trend in pop for the next few years. And with her warm, soulful voice, mixed with her undeniable self-assuredness, Lipa became the pop diva ready to meet an uncertain moment.
