Dua Lipa

Dua Lipa is an English and Albanian singer and songwriter.

Her voice and disco-influenced production have received critical acclaim and media coverage.

She has won numerous accolades throughout her career including seven Brit Awards and three Grammy Awards.

She began posting videos of herself covering songs such as "If I Ain't Got You" (2004) by Alicia Keys and "Beautiful" (2002) by Christina Aguilera on YouTube.

Lipa moved with her family to Pristina after Kosovo declared independence in 2008.

There she attended Mileniumi i Tretë School, learned more about the Albanian language, and considered a music career.

At age 15, Lipa moved alone back to London and shared a flat with a family friend.

At Parliament Hill School she passed her A-Levels, then re-entered Sylvia Young Theatre School part-time.

She uploaded her own songs to SoundCloud and YouTube.

Lipa modeled with Topshop and signed with a modeling agency, helping her land a role as a "singer" in an ITV advertisement for The X Factor in 2013, covering the song "Lost in Music" (1979).

She acquired a producer and a manager.

In 2013, Lipa signed a contract with Tap Management, directed by Ben Mawson and Ed Millett, while working as a waitress in a cocktail bar.

Lipa was introduced to Mawson by her lawyer, who discouraged her from signing another publishing deal that was offered to her.

They then offered her a monthly salary to leave her job and focus on recording music.

Lipa worked as a model before signing a recording contract with Warner Bros. in 2014.

During one of the sessions Lipa co-wrote the song "Hotter than Hell", which led to her signing a record deal with Warner Bros. Records in 2014.

Millett retrospectively elaborated: "Dua was really smart–she signed to Warner Bros. partly because they didn't have a big female pop artist and they needed one. They really wanted her, so she had the focus of the team from day one."

In August 2015, Lipa released her first single, "New Love", produced by Emile Haynie and Andrew Wyatt.

She rose to prominence with her eponymous debut album in 2017, which peaked at number three on the UK Albums Chart and spawned the successful singles "Be the One", "IDGAF", and the UK number-one single "New Rules".

Lipa was honoured with the Brit Awards for British Female Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act.

Her second chart-topping single, "One Kiss" with Calvin Harris, was the best-selling song of 2018 and won the Brit Award for Song of the Year.

In 2019, Lipa won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist and for Best Dance Recording for "Electricity", her collaborative single with Silk City.

Lipa's second album, Future Nostalgia (2020), became her first UK number-one album, and won the Brit Award for British Album of the Year and the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album.

Its lead single, "Don't Start Now", scored the longest top-ten stay for a British female artist on the UK Singles Chart and ranked in the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 year-end chart of 2020.

The album's success continued with the follow-up singles "Physical", "Break My Heart", and "Levitating", which topped the Billboard year-end Hot 100 chart of 2021 and was certified diamond in the US.

Both of Lipa's albums are the most-streamed female albums on Spotify, with over 10 billion streams each.

Lipa subsequently scored her third and fourth UK number-one singles with the 2021 Elton John duet "Cold Heart (Pnau remix)" and "Dance the Night" from the soundtrack of the film Barbie (2023), where she also made her acting debut.

Lipa was born in London, the eldest child of Kosovo Albanian parents Anesa (Rexha) and Dukagjin Lipa from Pristina, FR Yugoslavia (present-day Kosovo).

Her family is Muslim.

Her maternal grandmother is of Bosniak descent.

Her ancestry can also be traced back to the city of Peja, Kosovo.

Both of her grandfathers were historians.

She has a sister named Rina and a brother named Gjin.

Lipa was musically influenced by her father, who was the lead singer and guitarist of the Kosovan rock band Oda.

Her father continued to play music at home, including his own compositions and songs of artists such as David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Radiohead, Sting, The Police, and Stereophonics.

Dua Lipa began singing at the age of five.

Lipa grew up in West Hampstead, London.

She attended Fitzjohn's Primary School and her music lessons there included the cello.

When she auditioned to enter the school choir, the teacher told her that "she could not sing".

At the age of nine, she began weekend singing lessons at the Sylvia Young Theatre School.