Dua Lipa has always believed that pop music should be a light affair, something to be enjoyed because, after all, music needs to offer escape from a world that’s full of upsets. Her 2020 album, Future Nostalgia, was somewhat of a therapy to all the fears and grief that came with the pandemic, and it won her the pop vocal Grammy the following year.

The English-Albanian singer is set to return with a follow-up album, Radical Optimism, on May 3. “Radical Optimism, and the way that I see it, is this idea of rolling with the punches of not letting anything get you down for too long, of always seeing the positive side of things, of being able to grow and move forward and change your perspective regardless of what’s happening in your life, whether it’s heartbreak, whether it’s a friendship, whether it’s a relationship, whether it’s just growing and seeing things differently. I think it’s a big part of maturing and growing up,” she told Zane Lowe of Apple Music 1.

The 28-year-old’s optimism-laden music is all about recovery and resilience. She was raised in North London by Dukagjin and Anesa Lipa. They fled Kosovo in 1992 when conflicts in the region peaked but eventually returned to Pristina, the capital city. Four years down the line, her parents allowed Dua to move back to England where she initially modelled besides pursuing music. Soon after appearing in a 2013 commercial for The X Factor, she signed with Ben Mawson, Lana Del Rey’s manager.

Writing songs, for her, is therapeutic. “I’ve changed so much from who I was in my first album to who I am now, emotionally. And I’ve grown and I’ve matured. And I think you just find a sense of happiness and optimism and this kind of carefree energy of what’s meant for me is for me. I think perspective is something that I guess just keeps coming back. [Perspective means to me] emotional maturity in a way. I think my job has given me the opportunity in so many amazing ways to grow up before my time, feel things completely differently, experience the world in a different way. I feel like emotional maturity has also come from the situations that I’ve been thrown in. So in that sense, perspective is gifted to you because you see things from so many different people’s points of view. For me, writing songs for a living… is about emotions and feelings and thoughts. How will this make someone else feel when they hear it? What is the energy and the emotion and the thing that I’m trying to convey at this point in my life? And I think writing these songs is a form of therapy for me. And I get emotional maturity and perspective from all those things that allow me to grow and move on, which I’m so grateful for. It’s just such a vulnerable thing to do... write your thoughts down into melody, and then have it consumed by other people,” she told Apple Music 1.

Lyrical tweak

Her enthusiasm took a beating in school when her music teacher put her through a humiliating public audition in front of the school. He started playing the piano but not a note came out of her. She marched on and then came the Sylvia Young Theatre School, where she enrolled as a weekend student. Her tutor, Ray Lamb, realised she needed to be among teens rather than the junior choir. It was a move in the right direction.

Dua Lipa with Zane Lowe of Apple Music 1

But the thought of being famous wasn’t on her mind. “I never thought of the idea of being famous. So it is interesting. As I’m growing in the industry and seeing the different sides, it’s like: ‘Okay, what things do I keep for myself? What things do I put out?’ It’s a writer’s dilemma. In some ways, I had no inhibitions. I was jumping in and experimenting and trying something new. In some ways, I was really scared to.... Or it just took me a while to find my voice, to write things that were personal... but always in code, never fully wanting to put myself out there just because I felt like I needed to keep something for myself. And with this album, I feel like I’ve managed to put so much more honesty out there, and be really open in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever had the chance to.When I was writing Future Nostalgia, whatever I wrote that day in the studio, that was it. That was like the end of the song. Maybe a couple lyric tweaks here and there, but that was the demo that I would then go and record and finish,” she told Apple Music 1.

Tackling hate

With fame comes criticism verging on hate but that hasn’t got in the way of making good music. She unknowingly opened herself to criticism after she earned the Best New Artiste trophy at the 2019 Grammys.

“I think everything comes in stages and waves. There can be a moment where people really love you and you feel so supported and you’re like, ‘oh, this is great’, especially in the beginning. I was doing interviews and people were like: ‘How do you deal with hate?’ And I’m like: ‘I don’t get any hate. It’s great.’ And then that changed really quickly. I remember even when it was Grammys’ best new artiste nomination and I’d won it and there were people online being like, she’s not deserving of it. She’s got no stage presence. She can’t do this. She’s not well-equipped to… she’s not even… she won’t be here next year. There was a lot of that. That fuelled me in a way. I try and not use criticism as revenge. So I think whenever I see or feel or read anything that goes against what I know is coming or what I’ve been doing or how hard I’ve been working or whatever it is, I just kind of take a step back and I just go, okay, all of this is background noise and I should just stick on my path. Because each time someone has doubted me, I’ve proved them wrong. This is fuelling me. This is pushing me to be better, to work harder. And I get a real kick out of proving people wrong,” she told Zane Lowe.

On Radical Optimism, she has worked on every song several times because her perspective kept changing and so did her story. “And the way that I saw different scenarios or different things that happened in my life shifted. It was a beautiful experience to not be afraid to be like, ‘Actually, you know what? I am willing to put this out there.’ There’s this one song, which is the last song in the album, called Happy for You. And I love that song because, to me, it’s about seeing someone who you were with move on, and be really happy for them. And I probably wouldn’t have been able to write that song on my first or second record because I don’t feel like I probably would’ve grown as a person or as an artiste to be able to see someone that you loved move on; I would’ve found it difficult,” she said.

Album calendar for May

May 3: Dua Lipa, Radical Optimism (Warner Records)

May 3: Sia, Reasonable Woman (Atlantic Records)

May 10: Kings of Leon, Can We Please Have Fun (Capitol Records)

May 17: Billie Eilish, Hit Me Hard and Soft (Darkroom/ Interscope/ Polydor Records)

May 17: Don McLean, American Boys (BFD/The Orchard)

May 17: New Kids on the Block, Still Kids (BMG)

May 17: Zayn, Room Under the Stairs (Mercury Records)

May 24: Lenny Kravitz, Blue Electric Light (Roxie Records/BMG)

May 24: RM, Right Place, Wrong Person (BIGHIT MUSIC)

May 24: Twenty One Pilots, Clancy (Fueled By Ramen)

May 27: Aespa, Armageddon (SM Entertainment)

May 31: Willie Nelson, The Border (Legacy Recordings)