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Home , Dua Lipa

How Dua Lipa went from an adolescence in to a billion-stream hit By JONAH WEINER PHOTOGRAPH BY BRYAN DERBALLA

Month xx, 2017 RollingStone.com | | 39 Dua Lipa

I would probably choose Kanye over any- Del Rey. He signed her, and “literally the one.” The result was a barrage of hate from day after” booked her into the studio with the Swift faithful. “They were sending me what would become a parade of various snake emojis for, like, three days straight. writers. Lipa said she did have a rough no- They’re like, ‘I hope you die.’ I’m like, ‘Yo! I tion of what she wanted to sound like, in- literally didn’t say anything.’ ” spired by her twinned loves of pop and hip- Now, rehearsing at SNL, Lipa’s wor- hop, but its oddness would throw people for ries about “Homesick” turn out to have a loop: “I’d go into the studio, like, ‘I want merit. Legs crossed tight, back straight, to sound like and J. Cole,’ she holds a cordless mic with her left hand and people would be like, ‘What the fuck?’ ” and plants her right hand stiffly on the Inspiration came from unlikely places. piano, not because it’s what feels the most While co-writing with the -based natural, necessarily, but because her vocal electronic act RITUAL, Lipa struggled to coach, Lorna, told her that this pose would crack the code of an unfinished track: “I help give her strength to catapult into the was going through a tough breakup. Some- song’s early, hard-to-hit high notes. The one who made me feel like I wasn’t good performance feels of, and, when it’s over, enough. But when I wrote this song, I want- Lipa grimaces: One particularly high note ed it to seem like he couldn’t get enough of proved irksomely out of her reach. me.” The song “was good, but the chorus ome dudes on ’s crew Within seconds, she’s in a huddle with wasn’t quite there. We were like, ‘Let’s scrap are hammering together a green screen at her team. Jules presses play on the video he it.’ And I was scrolling through Tumblr, and Studio 8H when Dua Lipa walks past them shot; Lorna launches into vocal drills. Lipa I see the words ‘Hotter than Hell’ in red on in a long black dress, steps onto a stage, scrutinizes the phone and makes strange a black background. And I go, ‘That’s cool!’ and seats herself atop a grand piano, dan- noises for Lorna, then the SNL camera What if he thought I was hotter than hell, gling her legs from the end like a lounge act. crew is back in position and it’s time for an- and I just didn’t want him?” The single, It’s the first Thursday in February, and two other go. This time, when the second verse “Hotter Than Hell,” went gold in the U.K. days from now, Lipa will take this stage as starts, Lipa clutches the mic two-handed, With that song, Lipa says she finally the evening’s musical guest. She has reason holds it to her chest, then brings her left found a track that felt uniquely like her. It to feel confident: A 22-year-old pop singer palm up beside her cheek, where, captured introduced her to fans as a sort of warrior from London, Lipa was the most-streamed in close-up, it trembles and grabs, helping of love: Moments of vulnerability and long- female musician in the U.K. last year; fans to put some more drama into the perfor- ing dot her lyrics, but her prevailing mode include ’s and Bruno mance. It’s a minuscule tweak, but Lipa is to take no bullshit and take no prison- SMars; and her biggest single, “,” could tell from Jules’ video that ers. “New Rules” is framed has more than a billion YouTube views. it would make a big diference. as a three-point battle plan Lipa starts into “Homesick,” a wounded (Come Saturday, she will repeat for cutting of a bad-news ballad she wrote with Martin, which is these motions almost exactly.) “I’d say, dude; a more recent single, far and away the sparest song in her cata- Some three dozen crew mem- “IDGAF,” plays almost like log – a slow, spotlit showcase for her rich, bers and assorted hangers- on ‘I want to the sequel, where a former smoky voice, whereas most of her songs watch, rapt. When she’s done, romantic tormentor crawls tend toward brash, uptempo thumpers. the room breaks into applause. sound out of the woodwork, inter- Lipa’s day-to-day manager, Jules, aims Looking efortless takes work. ested in rekindling things, his phone at a monitor, shooting video of like Nelly and Lipa mercilessly sends the rehearsal for reference, because Lipa’s ua l ipa h a sn’ t him packing. plan is to sit on the piano near-motionless performed for a Furtado These songs aren’t ex- for the entire song, and although she hopes room this small in a and J. actly autobiographical, but this will register as subtly powerful, she D while. Last fall, she Lipa says she’s got ample also worries it might just come of as inert. played two nights at Madison experience in the chump- Lipa has learned that, when you’re in Square Garden while open- Cole.’ boyfriend department. the public eye, even the tiniest gestures can ing a bunch of arena shows for Sometimes her exes were resonate. For instance: Last October, she . She has a sound People “emotionally manipula- borrowed a Taylor Swift Speak Now T-shirt suited to vast spaces: big beats, tive”; sometimes their fail- from Jules and wore it to a soundcheck and big hooks and even bigger vo- would ings were more comical. “I meet-and-greet in Germany. Photos made cals. She started posting You- be like, dated this guy who literal- it to , and Swift’s fans spotted Tube covers from a friend’s ly would never eat a single it and giddily circulated the shots. Soon bedroom when she was 15, and ‘What vegetable,” she recalls. “I Swift herself posted a euphoric comment even then she was unafraid was like, ‘This is terrible. online in response: “I AM SCREECHING to tackle full-throated mate- the You eat like a five-year-old. WITH JOY.” The next month, however, all rial from heroes like Christina I’m fucking out.’ ” her goodwill with Team Taylor went up Aguilera and . These fuck?’ ” A couple of weeks ago, in flames when some of those same Swift covers were part of a conscious Lipa was watching the fans discovered a 2016 video interview in strategy: “It was like a port- Grammys, blown away by which Lipa, engaged in a cats-or-dogs-style folio. I would go out to gigs and make Ken drick Lamar’s performance. The event quiz, was asked to choose between Swift friends, and if someone was like, ‘I’m a was criticized for the preposterous facts and Kanye West – and went with Yeezy, producer’ or ‘I’m a songwriter,’ I’d be like, that was the only woman to emphatically and unhesitatingly. “I wasn’t ‘Well, I have these covers. . . .’ ” win an award during the entire show and thinking about their beef,” she says. “I was A string of such encounters, in person that Lorde hadn’t been ofered a solo per- thinking about their music, and Taylor is and online, led her to Ben Mawson, a music formance despite an Album of the Year

amazing, but I’m such a hip-hop fan that manager whose client roster includes Lana nomination. Recording Academy president YORK. NEW HOTEL, LUDLOW THE LOCATION: FRANCESCABRAZZO. BY MAKEUP KNIGHT. SAMI BY HAIR SPREAD: PREVIOUS

40 | Rolling Stone | RollingStone.com March 8, 2018 says. “I knew the only thing I wanted to do was music. So I was like, ‘Let me just take a year out and see what happens.’ ” Before that year was through, she’d landed her major-label deal.

hen she’s done rehears- ing at SNL, Lipa gets into the back of a car and heads W to her hotel, on the Lower East Side. Paparazzi have been waiting for her here on and of, but none are in sight at the moment. We try to grab a table at the hotel restaurant, but they don’t open for another half-hour. We stand in the lobby, plotting our next move. Downtime is rare for Lipa these days. A few nights ago, she was up in Montreal for a headlining . Not long before that, she was in Jamaica, at the venerable Geejam Studios, hashing out songs for her next album. “I want it to still be pop, but lean more toward soulful,” she says of the project. “My voice kind of lends itself to that genre.” She lists some of the things she’s been drawing on for inspiration: Lipa Faith “Electric Chair,” by Prince; the new Fran- cis and the Lights album; a lot of . Above: Lipa has been working She’s put in time in the studio in recent on new music with months with platinum-certified hitmak- (left) and . Left: In , Kosovo, with her father, who ers like Mark Ronson and pop master- used to play in a Kosovar rock mind Max Martin. “I spent a week with band called Oda. Max, and it was the first time where I felt like there was a lot more method to the things I was writing about. First with him Music filled the Lipa house- you lay down the melodies, listen to them hold thanks to her father, who over and over again, and say, ‘Maybe we sang lead, on the side, in a Kos- should change this note.’ ” When it came ovar rock band called Oda. to writing lyrics, “You couldn’t use the “They did it for fun,” she says, same words too often, next to each other. dug the hole deeper when “but then they had a really big song called And not everything can start on the one, he remarked on this disparity by telling ‘Beso ne Diell,’ which means ‘Believe in because it doesn’t keep it as interesting. I women music-makers to “step up.” Lipa’s the sun.’ I did a show in Kosovo two sum- played him some of the stuf I did in Ja- eyes go wide discussing this. “Women are mers ago and me and my band decided to maica, and he’d say, ‘You could totally sim- stepping up,” she says. “We just need to surprise my dad and sing it. It was so sur- plify this. Just repeat that twice. Make it be given a chance.” (Portnow later apolo- real, because everyone in the audience was easier for the listener.’ He has, like, a lot of gized for his wording.) She shakes her head. singing along.” rules and theories.” “These men in power should be supporting In her early adolescence, the Lipas That sort of systematic approach ap- everything that’s happening, supporting moved back to Kosovo’s capital, Pristina: peals to Lipa, who keeps dozens of run- equality, rather than saying, ‘You’re just not “I could speak the language, but I couldn’t ning lists on her phone, which she pulls out working hard enough.’ ” read or write, so moving there was daunt- to show me: “This is, like, the 100 books Lipa says that, growing up, she learned ing – the other kids weren’t going to be I should read before I die. I bought all of firsthand what work means. Born in Lon- making spelling mistakes on their home- them, and my goal is to read them all.” don, she comes from a family of Alba- work. Not only that, but just being the new She just finished Emma Cline’s Manson- nians from Kosovo who left their home- girl in school, once everyone has formed murders-inspired The Girls and loved it. land when it became engulfed in conflict. their friendships. It was nerve-wracking.” Now she’s in the middle of The Unbearable Her parents were immigrant strivers who But she made friends, and they put her on Lightness of Being. “I think it helps with my “worked in, like, restaurants and bars to hip-hop. Her first concert was Method songwriting,” she says. and little cofee shops,” she says, making Man and Redman. Second was 50 Cent. There’s still time to kill before the res- ends meet as London transplants. “They At 15, intent on taking a shot at a music taurant will seat us. “Are you opposed to worked really, really hard, and while they career, Lipa convinced her parents to let eating dessert before you eat dinner?” she were doing that, my dad went to night her move back to London without them, asks. We walk down the block to an ice school to get a business degree, then a staying with a family friend and enrolling cream parlor. “This is, like, the third day master’s in journalism, then started get- at the Sylvia Young Theatre School, whose in a row I’ve come here,” she notes, digging ting into advertising. My mom was getting alumni include and Rita a spoon into a cup of vegan vanilla some- her law degree before the war started, and Ora. A few years later, “it came to the point thing-or-other. “I don’t want to ruin my ap- when we moved to London she studied where I had to decide what I wanted to petite,” she says. “But sometimes you’ve got

FROM TOP: COURTESY OF DUA LIPA; ARMEND NIMANI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES NIMANI/AFP/GETTY ARMEND LIPA; DUA OF COURTESY TOP: FROM travel and tourism.” do for university, and I didn’t know,” Lipa to break the rules.”

March 8, 2018 RollingStone.com | Rolling Stone | 41