Dua Lipa has spoken about her experience of moving to London after leaving her family home in Kosovo when she was just 15 years old. Born in London to Albanian parents who fled the war and political instability in Kosovo, Dua left the United Kingdom in 2008 when her family moved to Pristina to live, following the declaration of independence. After several years, she decided to return courageously to the United Kingdom at the age of 15 to pursue her dreams of becoming a pop music star. On the famous British show “The Graham Norton Show,” which will air on Friday, Dua revealed how she truly felt when she returned to London.
“I returned to London from Kosovo when I was only 15 years old because there were more opportunities in music in London. It was a good time,” said Dua.
When asked how she felt about making such a big move at such a young age, she revealed that despite their physical absence, she still felt extremely supported by her family.
“I am very close to my parents, who trusted me a lot, so I was fine. My family keeps me grounded through all the madness,” Dua said.
Dua returned to the United Kingdom in 2014, believing she needed to move if she wanted to break into the international music market. After returning to London, she moved in with a family friend in Camden and attended Parliament Hill School, where she achieved four A levels in Politics, Psychology, English, and Media Studies. Despite the distance, Dua remained close to her family, and her mother even flew to London for parent-teacher meetings. In addition to school and modeling work for ‘ASOS’ and ‘Topshop,’ the teenager took weekend lessons at the ‘Sylvia Young Theatre School,’ whose former students include names like Billie Piper, Amy Winehouse, Rita Ora, and Keeley Hawes, and she recorded covers of songs which she posted on YouTube and SoundCloud. Eventually, her videos caught the eye of Ben Mawson at ‘Tap Management,’ who represents well-known music names such as Ellie Goulding, Lana Del Rey, and Leigh-Anne Pinnock of Little Mix. Her original song “Hotter Than Hell,” which appeared on her self-titled debut album “Dua Lipa,” led to a contract with Warner Bros. Records in 2014. And it was certainly the right decision as Dua has since toured the world with an album that has topped music charts, won three Grammy Awards, and six Brit Awards.
“An album will be out soon. I haven’t announced the title yet, but much of it will be more organic with live instruments,” Dua said.
Dua also spoke about her appearance in director Greta Gerwig’s film “Barbie.”
“It’s very embarrassing to talk about this while sitting on a couch with legendary actors, but I’m very proud of it, and it was a lot of fun. ‘Dance the Night’ was originally composed based on what Greta told us about the film, and we were drawn to Barbie doll’s existential crisis and thoughts of death. It was quite dark. Then we had to watch the movie, and I had changed it a bit, so we decided to write the song as a score following the dance movements. The whole soundtrack is amazing,” Dua Lipa said.
