The Bite Magazine - Spring/Summer 2021 - Issue 29

bitemusicceleb highest-charting song in the US and held sway during the coronavirus pandemic. The artist wrote the track with her ‘New Rules’ crew - Caro- line Ailin, Emily Warren and Ian Kirkpatrick, responsible for her first breakthrough hit and incidentally covered a conten- tious break-up. Ailin told Variety that the songwriting team was inspired by a night out at a ‘cowboy bar’ in Wyoming, where they played Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’. They brought the idea of a disco song to Dua, who “took it and just really brought it to life.” In a 2020 interview with Variety, Dua shared that Future Nostalgia was a ‘very happy’ album. “I feel like on my first record, the easiest thing for me to tap into and felt I could write about was my sadness, really. Like these are the memo- ries that linger [the] longest. [So] with this record, I felt like I could get out of my comfort zone, almost, and tell myself that it’s okay to write happy things and really write about how I feel in the moment,” she revealed. “This album is purely about dancing and having fun and being free and being in love,” she added. She then described how artists like Jamiroquai, Moloko, Blondie and Prince had inspired her new sound. “I hope it will brighten people’s day. We’re all staying at home, or the majority of us are, and hopefully, we can get the rest of the people to stay home too.” Despite the raging pandemic in 2020, Dua felt it was the right time to release her album last year to avoid further delay and bring some joy to people’s lives. Since the release of her second album, Dua Lipa has collect- ed several awards, including Favourite Song - Pop/Rock for ‘Don’t Start Now’ at the American Music Awards and Power- house Award at the Billboard Women in Music in 2020. She also won Most Performed International Work at the APRA Music Awards; Winning Songwriters for 'Break My Heart' and 'Don't Start Now' at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards; and British Female Solo Artist and British Album of the Year at the 2021 Brit Awards. Earlier this year, the artist appeared in the February 2021 issue of British Vogue and spoke to Yomi Adegoke about fame, love and having her best year yet. During the initial pandemic season, she delivered a ‘multidimensional’ concert experience called Studio 2054, shot in a warehouse and live- streamed across the globe. She also did a duet with Miley Cyrus on ‘Prisoner’, and her three singles ‘Don’t Start Now’, ‘Physical’ and ‘Break My Heart’ catapulted into the top 10 charts. Dua admitted when making the second album; she had to fight her inner demons. “I wanted to write songs that were [sadder], more about heartbreak because I thought that writ- ing happy songs would turn into cheesy songs. I had to fight that because I was like, ‘I am happy. I deserve to be happy.’ I should be able to write about that without the fear of feeling like I’m compromising my authenticity because I’m not cry- ing about something or someone.” Born in London, the singer moved to Kosovo with her parents in 2006 when she was 11, the country they fled in 1992 when Serbian forces under the direction of president Slobodan Milosevic drove them out. At 15, Dua persuaded her parent to let her move back to Britain alone to pursue her dream of performing. They agreed since there were opportu- nities in the arts in the UK, an initiative that the artist hopes to implement through the Sunny Hill Foundation she set up with her father. Moving in with a family friend in north London, Dua attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School at weekends and uploaded cover songs online. She modelled briefly, and her online fashion blog led to endorsement deals with Pepe Jeans, Puma and YSL Beauty. Incidentally, she signed a multi-year endorsement deal with Puma last year, which launched her