Dua Lipa, the youngest woman to have a billion views on a YouTube video with her record-breaking song “New Rules” and BRIT awards record-setter, has just released a chart-topping new album called “Future Nostalgia.”
Inspired by old school hip-hop and pop, the album lives up to its name. It’s been the subject of significant critical acclaim. Christ Taylor of The Line of Best Fit even asked his readers: “The greatest pop star of this generation? That’s for you to decide. But Future Nostalgia makes a very convincing argument that Dua Lipa just might be.”
Dua Lipa breaks records with “New Rules”
At only 24 years old, Lipa has already made music history. She has proven her talent again and again as not only a musician, but also a fashion designer and philanthropist. Her biggest break came from the hit single “New Rules”, which made her the first female solo artist to reach #1 in UK charts since Adele. The music video also broke YouTube streaming records.
“I find a lot of inspiration from heartbreak, I kind of thrive on it,” says Lipa about creating “New Rules”. However, she denies writing the song about anyone in particular. “Sometimes, you keep going bak to something that no longer helps you grow or makes you feel good. You know you’re comfortable with them,” she explains. “But you can’t live in comfort all the time. Life starts outside your comfort zone.”
The record-breaking video has more than 2 billion views.
Dua Lipa has a foot in two cities
Lipa spent her childhood split between Kosovo and London. Eventually, her desire to pursue a full-time music career cemented her life in London. The Irish Times report that Lipa’s parents are Kosovar and Bosnian Muslims who fled Kosovo in 1992, and returned in 2005 when Lipa was 10 years old.
Although Kosovo was ravaged by war in the 1990’s, Lipa’s memories are nothing but fond. “I got to Kosovo and I really loved it there,” she tells The Line of Best Fit, “It’s way safer than London. There was a sense of community and safeness – everyone knows everyone in Kosovo, especially in Pristina.” This allowed young Lipa to go out and explore often as a child, and her father’s connection to the Kosovar music scene allowed her an in into every big concert.
Her father, Dukagjin Lipa, played with a rock band called Oda. In this video, you can see him performing one of their songs in Albanian onstage with his daughter Dua:
“I don’t feel famous, that’s for sure,” says Lipa. “I still hang out with my friends, I can go out and jump on the tube. It’s super casual.” Although her daily life may not always be full of glamor, she is currently seeing Anwar Hadid, a Dutch and Palestinian model and brother of supermodels Gigi and Bella Hadid.
She and her father also organized an accessibly-priced 3-day long music festival in Kosovo in 2016, attended by 15,000 people according to Kosovo Police but 40,000 according to organizers. Lipa also uses her platform to speak up against social issues, including standing up for fans who were removed from her Shanghai concert for waving rainbow flags and calling out institutional sexism at the Grammys, reports the BBC.
“Future Nostalgia” combines vintage pop with futuristic beats
“What I wanted to do with this album was to break out of my comfort zone and challenge myself to make music that felt like it could sit alongside some of my favorite classic pop songs, whilst still feeling fresh and uniquely mine,” explains Lipa to Metro. Her newest album Future Nostalgia is inspired by artists such as Madonna, Gwen Stefani, and Outkast, but also embodies something of the future of what music to come may hold.
The charmingly animated music video for “Hallucinate” sounds like early-to-mid 2000s pop, evoking memories of Marina and the Diamonds mixed with early Lady Gaga:
The album has already met with practically universal acclaim.
“The 11-track Future Nostalgia offers netiehr features nor filler, and makes a strident case for Lipa as a pop visionary, not a vessel,” writes The Guardian’s Laura Snapes.
Michael Cragg of Crack similarly praises Lipa, writing that the album is “packed with full-throttle choruses, supple melodies and lashings of attitude… [and] is a neon-hued sound of one of the world’s biggest pop stars smashing it out of the park.”
The track “Physical” off of the album features synth-pop rhythms and sounds like something from a modern remake of Kevin Bacon’s solo dance scene in the hit 1984 film “Footloose”:
Listen to Future Nostalgia on Spotify today.
