Dua Lipa talks about her best ever summer ahead of Birmingham gig

It follows a sensational year in which her single New Rules held the number one spot for two weeks, become certified gold and broke 270,000,000 views with a remarkable music video.

Fans can look forward to a whole host of other hits from her debut album including Be the One, Hotter Than Hell and Blow your Mind (Mwah).

The singer and model started her music career at the age of 14 when she started covering songs by other artists on YouTube. She was soon signed by Warner Music and released a debut single before scoring two Brit Awards in 2018 for Best Female Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act.

She had attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School, part-time, after growing up listening to her father, singer Dukagjin Lipa and splitting her time between Kosovo and London.

Her debut album was released in June last year and has already sold more than 1.2 million copies, reaching number six in the US as well as number three in the UK.

“Last summer was the best summer of my life.

“Glastonbury was surreal, very surreal. I enjoyed every single bit of it; it was really special and exciting. I was so upset when the festival season finished because I was like ‘what am I gonna do now?’”

As well as playing giant festivals, Lipa also sold out such prestigious venues as Koko, where she’d previously seen her own favourites, like Bruno Mars, J. Cole and Schoolboy Q.

“It’s just one of those places that I associate with having the best times of my life and having a lot of fun. I grew up in north west London and just getting to perform there is crazy, crazy and exciting and I can’t wait. It’s going to be a very big night.”

Going to a stage school was enormously important to Dua, who attended the same classes as Sylvia Young Theatre School alumni Rita Ora and All Saints.

Her teacher, Ray, was particularly helpful. “When I was nine he saw something in me, she says. “He put me in a class with 14 and 15-year-olds and made me sing in front of the class. I’d be like the smallest little girl singing but he helped me build up my confidence.

“There was just too much conflict.”

Dua’s European heritage has been a big influence and she and her family had to move to escape the horrors of ethnic cleansing during Slobodan Milošević’s barbaric regime in the 90s.

“My grandmother on my mum’s side is from Bosnia,” she says. “I think because of that my parents moved.

“There was just too much conflict, my parents wanted to finish their studies so they decided to move to London.”

“We’ve been very lucky. It didn’t affect my family as much but going to school with people who were very, very badly affected by the war, who lost a lot of family members, or their homes, you really get an insight into the situation. To find out how it affected some of my really good friends now is really sad and really awful and horrible – war’s just a really dark thing.

“I got to Kosovo and I really loved it there. It’s way safer than London. There was a sense of community and safeness – everyone knows everyone in Kosovo, especially in Pristina.

“I was the youngest in my year, which was different and exciting. It was fun, we’d go out to the city centre and they’d show me around, I learned a lot from being there,” she says. “My parents felt a lot more comfortable letting me go out with my friends, as long as I was back by a certain time.

“In London I wouldn’t even have been able to go out without my parents at that age, but when I was in Kosovo I’d be back home by 7pm – my friends would walk me home.”

Dua’s career took off like a rocket after signing for Warners. She became the most streamed woman of 2017 and New Rules, IDGAF and Scared to Be Lonely with Martin Garrix helped to solidify her place at the top of the pops and put her on track to selling out stadiums on her own.

“I never expected anything to do what New Rules did. It kind of took on a whole world of its own and although I felt really passionately about the song and the video, it was really the video that was my story.”