Back in April, ahead of the highly-anticipated release of Dua Lipa's Radical Optimism album – and her first Glastonbury headline slot! – we met the superstar, with Warner Records president Joe Kentish, to tell the story of an artist taking control. Revisit our cover feature here, as Dua Lipa talks confidence, ownership and conquering the music industry...
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When Dua Lipa dropped in to see her dad, Dukagjin, at the end of the Easter bank holiday, they hung out as they would on any other occasion, yet the evening marked a watershed moment. The next morning, Lipa would take full control of her career and formally launch Radical22, her own management, publishing and production company, which also houses her Sunny Hill Foundation (the arts and culture hub that hosts the Sunny Hill Festival in Pristina) and her Service95 brand, book club and podcast. Her dad and manager, a trained dentist and former long-haired rock singer who everyone knows as Dugi, serves as CEO.
“We just watched telly and ordered food as normal,” begins the British-Albanian singer, sitting opposite Music Week sipping icy coconut water in an airy East London hotel suite the following lunchtime. Curled up on a sofa, Lipa is chilled, but ready to hold court.
“It’s about having control over my music, having the final say over what happens to it, how it gets synced…” she says. “As an artist, it’s important to understand that this is a business. I’ve had to learn so much, so many things that you don’t expect are part of this job.”
Hiring her father, a fellow “workaholic”, as her manager was a “no-brainer”, Lipa says, adding that she hopes to set an example.
“It was very easy to say, ‘This is the person that I trust the most with everything,’ she says. “He’s my best friend, we have such an open dialogue and that’s why I feel so in control, because there’s not a single email or thing that we wouldn’t talk about. Being in control of your name, your company… It would be cool if [other artists] are looking and wanting to re-evaluate their set-ups.”
Warner Records president Joe Kentish, who signed Lipa 10 years ago, a few months into his first A&R role at the major, believes her business reshuffle – which includes a global admin agreement with Warner Chappell Music for her publishing – sets her apart.
“Dua’s number one job is to be one of the best artists in the world,” Kentish says. “That is a massive undertaking, emotionally, mentally, physically. Putting yourself in the centre of your business as she has might be a distraction or too much for some artists. But Dua’s approach is so methodical and she takes it so seriously that if anyone could do it, she can. It’s brilliant for her to be taking a more central role, she seems very happy. With Dugi, we’ve been friends since her signing dinner and [the transition] has been seamless.”
Last November, the singer acquired the rights to her songs from the publishing division of her first management company Tap Music. They had parted ways in 2022, a situation Lipa told Rolling Stone that she “can’t talk so much about”. A statement from Tap – who took her on when she was a teenage blogger, model and waitress – said: “We wish Dua all the best for the future.”
Today, this unassuming superstar in tracksuit bottoms, trainers and a burgundy and blue striped Dua Lipa football shirt frankly admits that she has often had to learn the hard way in the industry.
“Yes, so much,” she says. “I think I trusted that other people knew better than me, and in some ways they did because they were more experienced. But I’ve just been learning to follow my gut and do the learning myself, rather than rely on other people’s knowledge. Now, I want to know what I’m getting into. That has been important for me and it has changed my perspective – the things that I saw as ‘work’, I don’t really see them like that any more.”
Welcome, then, to the Radical Optimism era. Dua Lipa’s third album is out on May 3 and things are about to go from huge to ginormous. If seven BRITs, three Grammys, four UK No.1 singles and a No.1 album weren’t enough, Lipa returns having added acting, podcasting, book reviews and TV production (Radical 22’s first show is a Disney+ documentary on Camden) to her CV. Today, she hints that book publishing is on the cards, too. Brands can’t get enough either, with Versace and YSL among her partners. On Spotify, she has more than 75 million monthly listeners and four tracks with over two billion streams. Oh, and she’s headlining Glastonbury, more on which later.
The plan for an album Kentish calls “more complete, more heartfelt and more Dua” than its predecessors is based entirely on Lipa’s vision.
Recorded in London and Malibu with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, Danny L Harle, Caroline Ailin and Tobias Jesso Jr (with past collaborators including Emily Warren, Ian Kirkpatrick and Ali Tamposi also involved), Radical Optimism strides past the bombastic pop of her self-titled debut (1,024,154 sales, according to the Official Charts Company) and 2020’s disco-tinged Future Nostalgia (732,534) into more experimental territory. Lipa wanted to summon the energy she feels when she plays records by Primal Scream, Massive Attack and Portishead.
The shattered disco ball in the video for her Barbie behemoth Dance The Night (893,494 sales) was no accident. While she is visibly chuffed by the Barbie experience (“Writing for film was a massive learning experience and I’d like to do more of it”), Lipa calls the track “the last hurrah” for the Future Nostalgia era.
Radical Optimism, with a shark swimming past Lipa on the sleeve, could scarcely be more different. She was unimpressed by posts on social media saying that lead single Houdini (which hit No.2 and has 434,409 sales) mimicked her last releases.
“It’s not the same at all,” she says, pointing to her “heavy, high octane, performance-led” turns at the Grammys and BRITs as evidence of where she’s going.
“People just say things for the sake of saying things or to rile people up,” she adds. “I don’t resonate with that at all. Also, I’ve been listening to the new songs [compared to] Physical or Love Again and they have no relation whatsoever. They sound like me because I’m singing them, but sonically they’re worlds apart.”
On Radical Optimism, shaggy-haired Australian Parker’s psychedelic tendencies mesh with classically trained raver Harle’s virtuoso skills on the music side, while Lipa’s long-term lyrical sidekick Ailin and Adele/Haim co-writer Jesso Jr help conjure slick, witty tales of the heart. Often, their stories were directly inspired by the dates Lipa was going on at the time, diary entries written the morning after the night before.
As shown by the addictive Houdini (No.3 in the UK Airplay chart for 2024 so far), Top 5 hit Training Season and fluorescent, club-ready third single Illusion, Radical Optimism is stuffed with sonic quirks.
On the album itself, choruses reverberate, melodies linger, instrumentation fizzes and one-liners spill forth in a way that’s impossible to pin down on first listen. What’s that repeated creaking sound in Houdini? And why is Lipa muttering about salted licorice at the beginning of Anything For Love, which moves from a tender piano intro into euphoric house territory?
“We weren’t tied down to any one thing,” she smiles. “We were all on the hunt for something unique, searching for [all things] weird, fun and experimental, while at the same time making a pop record.”
As for the salted licorice? That was Caroline Ailin, trying to push a popular snack from her native Norway onto her co-writers.
“I’m not a big licorice fan but Danny [L Harle] was loving it,” Lipa laughs. “He’ll win the hearts of Scandinavia with that one.”
She included the ambient studio recordings so listeners could feel the energy in the room, and was adamant about doing so because the closeness that fuelled Radical Optimism is hard to come by.
“Writing is definitely not easy, but when you do it with people who allow you to be yourself, you really get the best out of it,” Lipa says.
After touring Future Nostalgia, homebody Lipa chose to record at 5db Studios in London, living at home and making the short trip in each day.
“We went on so many dinners and to the movies,” she recalls. “Or I’d have them over at my house for games nights and I’d open up lots of bottles of natural wine. One night, we threw a rave at a friend’s bar and danced until three or four.”
The after-hours element came so easily because the music did. In the first week, they wrote three songs, the aforementioned Illusion, the bouncing groove of Watcha Doing and epic closer Happy For You.
“That’s very rare,” nods Lipa, but she insists the songs wouldn’t have come so fast if she wasn’t driving them. It comes back to the idea of taking control.
“It was about being able to dictate,” she says. “Before, I wasn’t as confident in my craft. I definitely feel so much better about who I am as an artist and a songwriter, what I want to do and say and how I want to say it. Spending that year on tour with Future Nostalgia changed everything. I know what it takes for me to be the best version of myself.”
As well as a better sense of her emotions, Lipa also discovered the confidence, firstly to step back if something wasn’t working and secondly, to edit her work if she woke up the morning after writing something and felt the sentiment no longer held true.
“Sometimes, it’s necessary to take yourself out of it, which is something I never would have had the courage to do before,” she says. “I would feel like I’d failed. I’d go into a session and if I wasn’t able to produce a song that day, I would be very hard on myself.”
Kentish, who hooked Lipa up with Kevin Parker via Warner Music UK CEO Tony Harlow, also notes this change.
“Dua had confidence at the start, she had chutzpah, moxie, but it’s less bravado now and more steely confidence,” he says. “She will examine and change her own work and she doesn’t find that a challenge. She can critique herself and be critiqued in a way that doesn’t harm who she is as a writer. Also, she knows herself much more, which you would hope. She signed at 18 and now she’s 28…”
Ever since Dua Lipa and Joe Kentish first met, one word has come up in their conversations more than any other.
“Glastonbury…” Lipa says, breaking into a giant grin. “I like to write down plans, ideas or dreams that I have and, around the time of my first record, I wrote that, by the time I got to my third album, I’d like to headline Glastonbury and work with Tame Impala…”
Hang on, has Dua Lipa just revealed that she can see into the future? Surely she didn’t really write those things?
“I actually did!” she answers. “Those are things I really wanted and I just felt inclined to write it down and work towards them.”
Indeed, Glastonbury has long been a studio yardstick for Lipa.
“Any song I’ve ever made, when I hear it back, I’m like, ‘How would this sound at Glastonbury?’” she says. “That has always been my barometer. To get to headline is just absolutely surreal.”
“It’s huge…” offers Kentish, breaking into laughter. “Dua has been pretty consistent in saying, ‘I want to headline Glastonbury.’ In the UK music industry, that’s a seminal moment, so it is going to be huge for her and for everyone on the project.”
Lipa smiles again as she notes how long she was sitting on the news.
“I got asked in November 2022 – ages ago!” she says. “It has really been my biggest secret, and also in the back of my mind while working on the album. Glastonbury has always been the pinnacle. It’s my favourite festival. I’m so grateful for the trust that Emily [Eavis] has put in me and I’ll make sure it’s great. It’s the biggest show of my life, so I’m gonna make sure I don’t fuck it up, basically!”
Lipa, who has a run of “adrenaline-regulating” European gigs before Glastonbury (a London date at the Royal Albert Hall is to come in October, with more touring in the pipeline), reveals that her new show “is pretty far along” in terms of production.
Without spilling any secrets, she sets the scene.
“Glasto is a one-off, to be done once and never again,” she says, eyes wide. “It’s about making it as unique as possible. I really love bringing a spectacle.”
Last year, Lipa’s friend Elton John trod the same boards, but she hasn’t tapped him up for tips yet.
“Ha, ha! I haven’t asked my friends yet…” she says.
The fact it is not her first time may also help.
“I’ve done Glasto twice,” she says, referencing slots on the John Peel Stage [now Woodsies] in 2016 and 2017, the latter of which drew a crowd that gridlocked a section of the festival in searing sunshine. Her scheduled Other Stage slot in 2020 fell victim to Covid.
“Ah, the roadblock! I’ll never forget it,” she smiles. “I’m putting in as much rehearsal time as possible so that when it comes to the point where I should be feeling the pressure, the scared bit, it’ll be fine because I’ll know that there’s absolutely no stone unturned.”
The fact that Lipa is, alongside SZA, one of two women headlining is not lost on her. Last year, Elton John was joined by Guns N’ Roses and Arctic Monkeys, with the all-male trio drawing criticism.
“There are just a lot more male artists [in general] and in the history of festivals women [have been less prominent],” reasons Lipa. “Last year there weren’t a lot of women in cycle, which is important to remember, but now women are dominating.”
Lipa welcomes the fact that Radical Optimism will drop at a time when Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish all have campaigns in full swing.
“It’s all ‘woman power’ right now,” she says. “And, for me, it’s amazing to be put at the top [of the bill] and to headline Glasto. We’ve just got to keep supporting women and pushing them to that degree so they can see it’s possible.”
Lipa acknowledges that she has often felt ‘got at’ in her career, especially with the kind of mainstream aspirations she has.
“I love pop – it’s expressive and it makes people feel good,” she says. “But it also gets looked down upon and it doesn’t get taken seriously. You have to do a lot of proving.”
She adds that the women the industry elevates as ‘pop stars’ (a term that raises a smile from Lipa) are subject to certain standards.
“People want you to speak out about things that you believe in, create a safe space for fans, or talk about current issues or activism,” she says. “But at the same time, a lot of people want you to not do that and they want their pop stars to just be very quiet, like, ‘Just sing your song and don’t get involved in politics.’”
Lipa believes that “people just love the drama” so they want musicians to be more outspoken.
“It’s just part of popular culture,” she sighs. “I speak about things that are important to me, things that I feel add benefit or are bigger than me, things I feel need a voice.”
Right now, those things centre on business.
“I’ve spoken to so many different artists about their experiences and I think that people mistake us as being away with the fairies, because we are preoccupied with the creative side and that’s the only thing we really want to be doing,” she says. “People take advantage of that a lot. It’s not just in music, it’s in any field. People are proper charlatans and they’ll try it.”
Lipa advises, “As cliché as it sounds, get a good lawyer, read contracts properly”.
As for what the industry can do, amidst the debate around remuneration from DSPs and social media giants, her message is clear.
“It’s for the big companies to think about paying songwriters more fairly,” she says. “We have to keep applying the pressure. Things aren’t going to just happen, we have to ask for change.”
When it comes to social media, Lipa (who has almost 90 million followers on Instagram, her favoured platform) reserves most of her ire for the negativity that prompted her to hand her Twitter account over to her team in 2020.
“It’s really unhealthy,” she says. “It harbours a certain type of energy that is often at the cost of someone’s feelings. It was a hindrance to my confidence, getting up on stage and thinking that people didn’t like me or that they hated the music. That’s not something that I should be focusing on.”
She realised that her mind should be on developing, improving and, god forbid, enjoying her growing career.
“I work so hard so why should I not be able to enjoy it?” she scoffs. “That was causing me not to, so getting off Twitter was the best thing I ever did.”
Holding eye contact, she shares one more delightfully blunt tip on how to stave off the evils of the industry.
“I just do my job and then leave,” she says, ice rattling in her cup to add inadvertent emphasis. “That is what keeps me sane and allows me to have normal experiences. I love that I get to do music, but it’s not what defines me completely, and I’m happy about that.”
If all the baggage that comes with a pop career has made Dua Lipa cherish her real relationships, the one she shares with Joe Kentish might be most precious of all.
“We’re just such close friends,” she says. “He’s really my soundboard, someone who I trust with my creative vision. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without him. I love it when he comes into the studio – he’s someone who I really want to impress, so every time I play Joe music, I hear things differently and realise what needs to change without him even saying anything.”
When we put this to Kentish later, he’s touched by the compliment because he had the same feeling with his old boss Jamie Nelson, who hired him at Parlophone.
“I would ask him into my room to listen to a record and I didn’t even need him to say anything,” says Kentish. “That’s essentially a part of my job, to offer Dua a new way of listening.”
Lipa says that approval from Kentish still feels special, before an admission that makes being a global pop star sound much simpler than it surely is: “I’ve never felt pressured or on a deadline. Ever.”
Brutal honesty is the bedrock of their relationship.
“There’s really no filter,” Lipa says.
“People talk about honesty, but it needs to be done in a certain way,” says Kentish. “It’s empathetic, or sympathetic honesty around her music. I think one of the reasons why, when I come into a studio, Dua might feel it’s a different listening experience is because she knows that I will be honest with her and that is not always easy to do in those environments, with who else might be in the room. I offer her that honesty which, as artists become bigger, is more difficult to get.”
Beyond the studio, the challenge for Kentish is to ensure that Radical Optimism can push her career to the next level.
None of Lipa’s four No.1 singles debuted at the top, while her first album landed at No.5 in June 2017, reaching a peak of No.3 38 weeks later. Future Nostalgia, brought forward after a leak, missed out on No.1 to 5 Seconds Of Summer by 550 units and hit the top a week later.
These stats have come to feel like a badge of honour. Kentish is proud of Lipa’s purposefully challenging sound, and wants people to feel “a little off balance” on first listen.
“There’s a lot of great music, especially from her female contemporaries, so this approach will steer her well,” he says. “Then, it’s about holding your nerve and being confident that massive records will come, because this is what her consumption should look like. When you look at her huge streaming records, they have got there over the course of years, not week ones.”
He says Lipa’s albums have a “long burn time” and that her latest is “deep and rich with singles”.
Radical Optimism arrives into a different landscape than Future Nostalgia did, with the subjects of Universal pulling its songs from TikTok and superfans high on the agenda.
UMPG’s move to follow UMG’s stance on TikTok saw Lipa’s tracks pulled too, and Kentish has a measured view.
“Dua’s not a TikTok-first artist so it possibly hasn’t had as much effect on her as it might on some of the other artists on my roster,” he says. “Having said that, it’s an incredibly important platform, so it has had an impact, but how big I don’t know. It challenges us to find audiences in other areas.”
On the subject of superfans, Kentish says they are very much part of the Dua Lipa equation.
“Dua is really keen to drive value for her fans, but sometimes the superfan conversation can be skewed towards something else, which is maximising output or revenue and that’s not it,” he says. “We want to super-serve fans with things that are very important to them.”
With her portfolio expanding further, it would appear Dua Lipa has more to offer her fans than ever. And at a time when culture can feel disparate and intangible, her drive to create and succeed on her own terms is surely something to be celebrated.
Kentish says Lipa’s extracurricular activities can only be a plus.
“Dua does so much, but she has the capacity and ambition for it,” he says. “When you work with someone as talented and ambitious as her, she’s not going to be happy limiting herself to just one thing.”
Considering the limits of Lipa’s potential, Kentish says her impact will be impossible to quantify until further down the line.
“Getting to a level like Madonna, for example, is always difficult,” he says. “You cannot judge anyone in the moment in terms of legacy, especially two albums in. Dua has got as good a chance as anyone of [getting there]. One of the hardest things is for artists to have the real ambition and fearlessness to get to these top levels and, mentally, Dua is absolutely able to hit those levels.”
And so with Radical Optimism, Glastonbury and so much more to come, we leave Dua Lipa where we began, on the subject of Radical22 and the business decision that has changed everything.
“I’m having the time of my life,” she offers as a parting shot as our time together winds past the hour mark. “I’m taking ownership of things I’m passionate about, I have everything under one umbrella and I want to do more of all of it. There are so many possibilities…”
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