In December British pop star Dua Lipa was named the UK's most streamed woman of 2017 by Spotify, and when Bruno Mars brought his mammoth 24K Magic tour to New Zealand last month, he handpicked her as his supporting act.
On the opening night of Bruno Mars' four-night run in Auckland, Dua Lipa high-kicked and bounced her way around the stage dressed in a yellow Adidas tracksuit, a reminder of a certain Sporty Spice from 20 years ago.
Her voice was strong and her electronic and hip-hop twinged pop connected with the crowd at Spark Arena and got them moving, despite seemingly knowing only a few of her songs.
Those songs –‘New Rules', ‘IDGAF’, and ‘Scared to Be Lonely’ with Martin Garrix – have helped to solidify her place at the top of the pops and put her on track to selling out stadiums on her own.
'New Rules', which went to #3 on the New Zealand charts, was the first song by a solo female artist to reach #1 in the UK since Adele's 'Hello' in 2015.
The song is an upbeat bop about not going back to an ex, something that Dua says is often easier said than done – “If you’re under him, you ain’t getting over him”, she warns in the song.
Dua had already been touring and releasing solid pop tunes for two years, but the song's success still took her by surprise: "I never expected anything to do what ‘New Rules’ did. It kind of took on a whole world of its own and although I felt really passionately about the song and the video, it was really the video that was my story.
“That was what I would do when I would go through a break up would be with my friends, but maybe without the synchronised hair combing and the matching robes… but I would always go to my friends for comfort but also advice, because I always tend to be the person who is really good at giving advice but terrible at taking my own.”
'New Rules' is part of her trifecta of empowering break-up songs, which also includes 'Hotter Than Hell' and 'IDGAF.
The songs have helped her to build a fan base who find her lyrics relatable, often tagging her on social media to ask for her help in saving them from themselves, such as in an exchange she had with actress and Gucci model Hari Nef.
@dualipa help!
— hari nef (@harinef) September 27, 2017
“It feels really good. Especially when fans come up to me and they’re like, ‘This song helped me to get over a break up,’ and I feel like I’m where I should be and I’m doing what I should be doing.”
Writing the songs also served in aid of her own heartbreak, Dua says.
“Even in ‘Hotter Than Hell’, when I started writing that song it was initially quite a sad song because I came out of a really awful break up and I just felt like I wasn’t good enough but I didn’t want that person to know I felt like that.
“So I kind of had this false sense of confidence for that song and as I was writing it I started getting over the situation and I felt more empowered. Sometimes when you tell yourself so many times in your head that it’s not the way you thought it was, it helps.”
In December, Dua was named the most streamed woman of 2017 in the UK by Spotify, beating out the likes of Rihanna and Taylor Swift. In January she was nominated in five categories at the 2018 Brit Awards, going on to win British Single of the Year for ‘New Rules’, and British Album of the Year for her self-titled debut.
Not bad for a singer who has only been releasing music for two years.
“From the very beginning, it was quite a whirlwind. Now, this past year has probably been the fastest year of my life, but everything has gradually grown, I’ve always wanted the next thing I put out to build more and more momentum,” she says.
Partway through the Australian leg of the Bruno Mars tour nearly a month after she first touched down in New Zealand, Dua had to have emergency oral surgery to get her wisdom teeth removed, forcing her to miss a few shows of the 24K Magic tour. In a post on Instagram, she explained that she had been performing with “an awful pain” – something that was not evident in her first Auckland performance, or during our interview.
For a pop star at her level – not yet a household name, but with a song that went #1 around the world – the pace is relentless, meaning painful wisdom teeth have to be ignored as there are always more interviews, more photo shoots, and more performances to be done.
Make no mistake, this is a job, but one Dua is grateful to be doing.
“There are times that I get homesick and times where I miss my bed and I want a home cooked meal, but there is no feeling like the feeling I get before going on stage.
“It’s like falling in love when you get all these crazy butterflies when you have the anticipation of the unknown and not really knowing what you’re jumping into. It’s that feeling that is so unmatched that is also so addictive that I love."
Dua Lipa sits down for a chat with Ellen Falconer Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
Born and raised in London, Dua and her family moved to her parents' home country of Kosovo when she was a tween. Dua was 15 when she asked to move back to London by herself to pursue her singing career. A family friend was also moving to London at the same time, which made her parents' decision to let her go easier.
“I would wake up, I would call my mum, I would leave, I would go to school, I would leave school, I would call my mum. You know, it was under controlled circumstances for a couple of years until I was old enough, to just be like, ‘It’s cool, we don’t have to talk every second’.”
In between homework and part-time jobs, Dua was writing songs and uploading covers to YouTube, like any ambitious millennial would. She was 18 and working as a hostess at a restaurant in Soho when she signed her deal with Warner Music and began working on an album proper.
“It was tricky to figure out what my genre is because growing up I listened to so many different types of music, from pop artists who I absolutely loved like Nelly Furtado and Pink. I also listened to lots of British rock because my parents would listen to it at home. Like Oasis and Stereophonics and David Bowie.
“Then when I moved to Kosovo everybody was listening to hip-hop. So I was pretty confused. Going into the studio it was really trying to find a mixture of all of those things into something I really identified with.”
The first songs Dua wrote that she felt captured her myriad of influences and the sound she was going for were Hotter Than Hell and 'Thinking 'Bout You'.
‘Hotter Than Hell’ started with just a piano and kick drum, but it wasn’t until she took the song to Canadian producer KOZ, who added the electronic production, that the blueprint for her debut album was found.
Her first single to chart was 'Be the One' in October 2015, which achieved success across Europe, and reached #20 on the airplay charts here in New Zealand shortly after.
Six months later, ‘Hotter than Hell’ was a Top 20 UK hit. Her fifth single ‘Blow Your Mind (Mwah)’ became her first entry into the Billboard Hot 100 and singles with Sean Paul and DJ Martin Garrix followed, garnering her more international success and recognition.
Then 'New Rules' happened and she went to number one.
While the promo campaign for her debut album continues, work has already begun on a follow-up album, taking her to studios in Jamaica and Sweden, where she spent time with Max Martin, who has written some of the biggest pop hits of the latest 20 years including Britney Spears' ‘…Baby One More Time’, Kelly Clarkson's ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’, Katy Perry's ‘Teenage Dream’, Taylor Swift's ‘Shake It Off’, and The Weeknd's ‘Can’t Feel My Face’.
“It just showed me a whole new side to songwriting,” she says of working with the superstar producer. “Sometimes I feel like everything I have done up until now has been so spontaneous, and lyrically it still is, but sometimes now I think about it more. About another pop side of things, but I feel like I would have to spend a lot of time with Max to really get into it.
"He’s got a lot of theories and it’s really interesting to learn from him but I think a healthy mixture of a bit of spontaneous and a bit of theory is really what’s great about it."
Here's hoping Dua Lipa continues to write the new rules for herself.
