Video will appear as you scroll through the story
Dua Lipa · S1 E5
Sylvia Young
Saturday school in the hallways where Amy Winehouse once sang, and the first real training
A Saturday morning in Marylebone, 2011. Dua Lipa walks through the doors of the Sylvia Young Theatre School and finds herself surrounded by teenagers who can all sing, dance, and act better than she can.
"No Lie" (Sean Paul feat. Dua Lipa, 2016). A high-energy collaboration that showed how far Dua had come from those Saturday classes. The confidence in this performance started in a drama school rehearsal room in Marylebone. Press play.
Saturday School
The Sylvia Young Theatre School in Marylebone has been producing British pop stars since the 1980s. Students attend on Saturdays for classes in singing, acting, and dance. For Dua, who had no formal training and had been teaching herself to sing by copying YouTube videos in Pristina, it was the first time she'd been in a room full of people who took performing as seriously as she did.
Sources
Savage, Mark. "Dua Lipa: The pop star who refused to be pigeonholed." BBC News, 2018.
Haskell, Rob. "Dua Lipa Is Taking Over the World." Vogue, January 2021.
TAP TO REVEAL: Which other pop stars walked the same Sylvia Young hallways?
“It was great fun and really helped me with my confidence. My teacher Ray put me in a class with 14- and 15-year-olds and made me sing. He told me: 'You can sing, and don't let anyone tell you what you can and can't do.'”
— Dua Lipa, interview with Wylde Magazine, 2018
No Lie, Sean Paul feat. Dua Lipa (2016)
"No Lie" pairs Sean Paul's dancehall flow with Dua's deep vocal over a warm, tropical production. The beat borrows from Caribbean riddim culture while Dua's chorus melody pulls it back toward European pop. Listen for how comfortable she sounds trading lines with Sean Paul, an artist with decades more experience. That ease didn't come from nowhere. It came from years of learning to hold a room, starting with those Saturday classes in Marylebone.
Sources
Savage, Mark. "Dua Lipa: The pop star who refused to be pigeonholed." BBC News, 2018.
Sylvia Young Theatre School
The performing arts school on Rossmore Road in Marylebone where Dua trained every Saturday. The building sits between a residential street and a busy London road, completely unassuming from the outside. Inside, it's produced more pop stars per square metre than almost anywhere in Britain.
Inside Sylvia Young
Begging, Dua Lipa (2017)
"Begging" is one of the rawest tracks on the debut album: minimal production, a slow-building beat, and a vocal that sounds like it's being pulled out of her. The title fits this episode perfectly. At Sylvia Young, Dua was essentially begging to be taken seriously, working twice as hard to close the gap between herself and kids who'd been training since childhood. The desperation in this song isn't performed. It's remembered.
Begging, Dua Lipa (2017)
"I'm not asking for a lot, just that you're honest with me." The lyric works as a love song, but it also reads like a plea from someone who just wants a fair shot. The verses are quiet and controlled, the chorus opens up into something almost aggressive. That dynamic range, soft to loud, hesitant to demanding, is the sound of someone learning to own a room. Sylvia Young taught her the technique. The hunger was already there.
Which famous British singer was expelled from Sylvia Young Theatre School for piercing her nose?
Sylvia Young gave Dua training and confidence, but it won't pay the rent. Next: YouTube covers shot in her bedroom, a modeling agency that comes calling, and the grind of making ends meet in a city that doesn't care how well you can sing.
0 XP earned this session