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How Dua Lipa went from an adolescence in Kosovo to a billion-stream hit By JONAH WEINER PHOTOGRAPH BY BRYAN DERBALLA Month xx, 2017 RollingStone.com | Rolling Stone | 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 Nelly Furtado 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 London-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 Saturday Night Live’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 Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Bruno mance. It’s a minuscule tweak, but Lipa is to take no bullshit and take no prison- SMars; and her biggest single, “New Rules,” 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 Bruno Mars. 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 Instagram, 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 Joss Stone. 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 Alessia Cara 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 concert. 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 Outkast. Above: Lipa has been working She’s put in time in the studio in recent on new music with Mark Ronson months with platinum-certified hitmak- (left) and Diplo. Left: In Pristina, Kosovo, with her father, who ers like Mark Ronson and pop master- used to play in a Kosovar rock mind Max Martin.

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