UK singer Dua Lipa has been nominated for 5 Brit Awards / Getty Images for Governors Ball
UK singer Dua Lipa has been nominated for 5 Brit Awards / Getty Images for Governors Ball
UK singer Dua Lipa has been nominated for 5 Brit Awards / Getty Images for Governors Ball
UK singer Dua Lipa has been nominated for 5 Brit Awards / Getty Images for Governors Ball

The rise of British-Kosovan pop star Dua Lipa


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  • Arabic

When Dua Lipa hit No 1 in the British ­singles charts for the first time last week, it was four days ­before her 22nd birthday and three days before the two-year anniversary of her first online release.

The song in question, New Rules, is more than worthy of the position: it sounds as good heard in passing, on a shop radio or emanating from a passing car, as it does on a ­personal obsessive loop on your own headphones. Its list of post-break-up ­commandments casts Lipa as confident enough to be clever about the ­situation ("Two: Don't let him in, you're only gonna have to kick him out again") while also ­vulnerable enough to have to be ­painstaking. And its video, which recasts the lyrics as a conversation between women rather than voices in Lipa's head, is also brilliant for its sense of emotional progress over the song – by the end, Lipa is the one doling out the advice to a newly heartbroken friend.

For the British-Kosovan ­singer, whose self-titled debut album also made the Top 10 in the United ­Kingdom on its release in June, it could also mean the end of the awkward, drawn-out chrysalis phase now par for the course for young major-label pop stars. The music-industry term for artists yet to be fully unleashed on the world is "in ­development" – and it's often something of an arduous process. It ­involves taking raw talent and/or charisma, then ­triangulating it with current trends and future trend-­spotting, pushed and pulled all the while by the commercial ­desires and ­artistic whims of label executives, A&Rs, ­managers, producers and the artist themselves. The end ­result, depending on how romantic you want to be, is a product, a brand or a pop star; a collection of statements – sonic, visual, maybe even political – that strike a chord with the public, or at least a segment of it.

Getting this right can take years, and involve false start after false start. In 2014, an early video by rapper Iggy ­Azalea emerged online; entitled Nothing Like Me, it purported to be a demo recorded for a label she never ended up signing to, and its Britney Spears-esque dance-pop was indeed nothing like the ­imitation southern hip-hop with which she would ­eventually find fame. And if Lana Del Rey's emergence from the internet ether with Video Games in 2012 was one of the most strikingly ­orchestrated debuts of this decade, the painstaking work that had gone into getting her sound and look just right was revealed when her "real" first album also found its way online. Recorded under her birth name, Lizzy Grant, and pulled after just three months, almost everything about it – the misspelled title of Lana Del Ray, the amateurish cover font, the clunky production – was full of potential, but in sore need of refinement.

These days, the refinement is more likely to take place in full view of the public from the start: rarely will a pop star burst into the ­public ­consciousness as a fully-formed, ­coherent ­entity. Rather, they will start slow, gaining an online ­presence and ­gradually ­accruing fans without ­necessarily turning the promotional machine on full blast. From a positive angle, this enables early converts to follow the artist's journey – both in terms of ­magnitude, as they (ideally) become a bigger and bigger deal; and ­aesthetically, with the tweaks to their image and sound mirroring the life phases many pop fans ­naturally go through in their teens and 20s. A more ­cynical way of ­looking at it is that major labels, still ­enduring smaller budgets and profits – particularly when it comes to artists not already established as megastars – prefer to throw one sound after another at the public just to see what sticks rather than spend squillions behind the scenes only to find they haven't gauged the ­reception correctly.

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There's also the sense, now, that pop audiences expect authenticity – or at least, a certain version of it. If the era of big-budget reality TV was when the curtain was first drawn back on the process of pop manufacturing, the media landscape now offers pop fans the chance to bypass light entertainment shows entirely to go straight to the source, with current pop stars such as Shawn Mendes and Alessia Cara rising to prominence via Vine and YouTube before being signed to major labels.

Lipa, too, posted low-­budget pop covers online in 2015 – but it wasn't such an organic emergence for the ­former model and alumna of the Sylvia Young Theatre School, who was already working with Del Rey's ­management team and signed to Warner Bros. But even if Warner Bros was simply incorporating a "relatable" evolution into her career arc, Lipa's bigger endgame was evident almost ­immediately: within months, she had been longlisted for the BBC Sound of … 2016, the annual self-­congratulatory pop ritual in which industry insiders predict success for acts who already have major label ­backing and budgets behind them.

Indeed, for a while, Lipa had more presence as an industry product than an artist with an identifiable aesthetic, as evidenced by the ­comparisons early reviewers grasped at. The Guardian called her a "younger, poppier Lana", presumably inspired by the professional links rather than her full-throated voice, while the Independent pinned her as a jazz and cabaret singer. The BBC, meanwhile, matched Lipa's amorphous non-sound with the ­meaningless ­description "off-kilter it-girl sound". It wasn't that she was ­uncategorisable or ­elusive, simply that each single found her trying on a different set of clothes, ­accessorising with chart trends so varied as to be meaningless. The singer herself seemed confused: last year, when she released her fourth single, Hotter Than Hell, she described the upbeat, ­festival-friendly anthem as "dark pop", ­presumably ­because of its titular reference.

Thus, that first single, New Love, feinted blandly at Jessie Ware-style soul; even now, it is by far the weakest cut on Lipa's album. A second go, Be the One, made the Top 10 in the UK and had surprising chart longevity. Its blend of 1980s synth-pop and gospel touches were rather better suited to Lipa's booming alto – and even if the song wasn't bursting with individual character, details such as the arrangement giving way to a skipping heartbeat kick drum on its bridge were the kind of addictive moments that are key to great pop.

The twist? The singles that seemed like insubstantial ­Spotify pop by themselves – fine, but nothing special – come together on Lipa's album, two arduous years in the making, to make her entire aesthetic fall into place. It's a bold work – in length (17 tracks in total in its deluxe-edition form); in concept (a break-up album patterned around the arc of a relationship that starts with a song called Genesis and the line: "In the beginning, God created heaven and Earth"); and even in sound. Lipa is fond of unusual combinations of influences, but purées them so seamlessly – while leaning heavily on rather more-­common sounds such as tropical house – that she makes power-ballad drum fills paired with reggae steel pans sound like radio fodder. When heard in the wild, this becomes a positive.

Thus, Blow Your Mind (Mwah) brings out brash ­buzz-tooth synths while ­harking back to early ­Kesha-style electropop; when Lost in Your Light pairs Lipa with R&B singer Miguel, she ­manages to match his ­yearning ­romantic sweep ­almost ­exactly. Usually, when albums that have been ­subject to so much delay eventually come out, the reasons are obvious: they are often ­overthought and overly trend-driven. That isn't ­exactly inaccurate with Dua Lipa, given the amount of bases she tries to hit and the stylistic mélanges she ­attempts. But the sheer amount of flashy hooks she crams in, the lack of filler and the way in which she ­manages to tie the whole package together are, against the odds, an argument in favour of that dispiriting ­developmental process.

The National's picks

4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young

All Black 39-12 British & Irish Lions

Lions tour fixtures

3 JuneProvincial BarbariansWon 13-7

7 JuneBluesLost 22-16

10 JuneCrusadersWon 12-3

13 JuneHighlandersLost 23-22

17 JuneMaori All BlacksWon 32-10

20 JuneChiefsWon 34-6

24 JuneNew ZealandLost 30-15

27 JuneHurricanes

1 JulyNew Zealand

8 JulyNew Zealand

Padmaavat

Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali

Starring: Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor, Jim Sarbh

3.5/5

Real estate tokenisation project

Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.

The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.

Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.

The five pillars of Islam

1. Fasting 

2. Prayer 

3. Hajj 

4. Shahada 

5. Zakat 

Abu%20Dhabi%E2%80%99s%20Racecard
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Cricket World Cup League 2 Fixtures

Saturday March 5, UAE v Oman, ICC Academy (all matches start at 9.30am)

Sunday March 6, Oman v Namibia, ICC Academy

Tuesday March 8, UAE v Namibia, ICC Academy

Wednesday March 9, UAE v Oman, ICC Academy

Friday March 11, Oman v Namibia, Sharjah Cricket Stadium

Saturday March 12, UAE v Namibia, Sharjah Cricket Stadium

UAE squad

Ahmed Raza (captain), Chirag Suri, Muhammad Waseem, CP Rizwan, Vriitya Aravind, Asif Khan, Basil Hameed, Rohan Mustafa, Kashif Daud, Zahoor Khan, Junaid Siddique, Karthik Meiyappan, Akif Raja, Rahul Bhatia

Sri Lanka-India Test series schedule

1st Test July 26-30 in Galle

2nd Test August 3-7 in Colombo

3rd Test August 12-16 in Pallekele

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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Race card

5pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 1,600m; 5.30pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,400m

6pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,400m; 6.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,200m

7pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 2,200m

7.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh100,000 (PA) 1,400m

UAE v Gibraltar

What: International friendly

When: 7pm kick off

Where: Rugby Park, Dubai Sports City

Admission: Free

Online: The match will be broadcast live on Dubai Exiles’ Facebook page

UAE squad: Lucas Waddington (Dubai Exiles), Gio Fourie (Exiles), Craig Nutt (Abu Dhabi Harlequins), Phil Brady (Harlequins), Daniel Perry (Dubai Hurricanes), Esekaia Dranibota (Harlequins), Matt Mills (Exiles), Jaen Botes (Exiles), Kristian Stinson (Exiles), Murray Reason (Abu Dhabi Saracens), Dave Knight (Hurricanes), Ross Samson (Jebel Ali Dragons), DuRandt Gerber (Exiles), Saki Naisau (Dragons), Andrew Powell (Hurricanes), Emosi Vacanau (Harlequins), Niko Volavola (Dragons), Matt Richards (Dragons), Luke Stevenson (Harlequins), Josh Ives (Dubai Sports City Eagles), Sean Stevens (Saracens), Thinus Steyn (Exiles)

The White Lotus: Season three

Creator: Mike White

Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell

Rating: 4.5/5

Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
The specs

Engine: 8.0-litre, quad-turbo 16-cylinder

Transmission: 7-speed auto

0-100kmh 2.3 seconds

0-200kmh 5.5 seconds

0-300kmh 11.6 seconds

Power: 1500hp

Torque: 1600Nm

Price: Dh13,400,000

On sale: now