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Dua Lipa · S1 E6
The Hustle
YouTube covers, modeling agencies, nightclub doors, and paying London rent
A bedroom in north London, 2012. Dua Lipa props her laptop on a stack of books, presses record, and sings a Nelly Furtado cover into a built-in microphone, hoping that someone on the other side of the internet is paying attention.
"Lost in Your Light" (Dua Lipa feat. Miguel, 2017). A smooth, R&B-leaning track from the debut album that shows Dua completely in her element. The girl singing covers into a laptop didn't know it yet, but this is where she was headed.
“I was 11 and living in Kosovo. I knew I wanted to perform but didn't feel like I could do it there. So I moved back to London on my own at 15, carried on going to school, and started posting cover songs online.”
— Dua Lipa, quoted in multiple interviews
The Bedroom Studio
Dua's YouTube covers were rough. Bad audio, unsteady camera, a teenager in her bedroom singing songs by Nelly Furtado, Christina Aguilera, and P!nk. But the voice was unmistakable even through the compression. She uploaded consistently, treating every video like a public audition, and the view counts slowly crept up from dozens to hundreds to thousands.
Sources
Savage, Mark. "Dua Lipa: The pop star who refused to be pigeonholed." BBC News, 2018.
Beaumont-Thomas, Ben. "Dua Lipa: the wholesale reinvention of a pop megastar." The Guardian, 2020.
Lost in Your Light, Dua Lipa feat. Miguel (2017)
"Lost in Your Light" is the smoothest track on the debut album. Miguel's falsetto and Dua's deeper tone wrap around each other over a laid-back groove built on soft synths and a barely-there drum pattern. The production gives both voices room to breathe, never crowding the mix. Listen for how Dua's vocal shifts when she harmonizes with Miguel: she softens, pulls back, and lets the blend do the work. It's the sound of someone who learned to sing by listening, not by being told.
Sources
Savage, Mark. "Dua Lipa: The pop star who refused to be pigeonholed." BBC News, 2018.
TAP TO REVEAL: How did modeling lead to music?
Mayfair, London
The upmarket West End district where Dua worked as a nightclub hostess in her mid-teens. Every weekend she'd watch DJs and performers from behind the door, soaking up the energy of a crowd and learning what makes people move.
Five Jobs, One Dream
Room for 2, Dua Lipa (2017)
"Room for 2" is a slow-building pop track about making space for someone in your life. For this episode, flip the metaphor: Dua was trying to make room for herself in a city that had no space for a broke teenage singer with no connections. The production starts sparse and gradually fills up, mirroring the way she slowly built a presence in London through sheer persistence. By the final chorus, there's nowhere left to hide.
Room for 2, Dua Lipa (2017)
"I'll make room for two, just me and you." The words are addressed to a lover, but they carry the quiet ambition of someone who's been fighting for every inch of space since she was fifteen. The verses build carefully, each line adding detail, before the chorus throws the doors open. It's one of the most underrated tracks on the debut album: no gimmicks, no hooks borrowed from other genres. Just Dua and a melody that gets stuck in your head for days.
Which artist did Dua Lipa NOT cover in her early YouTube videos?
The YouTube covers are getting views, the modeling is paying rent, but Dua still doesn't have a manager or a label. That's about to change when two men who work with Lana Del Rey see one of her videos. Next: TaP Management, a record deal, and the moment a teenager with zero released songs walks into Warner Bros.
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