How Do You Dua?

From YouTube covers to magazine covers, Dua Lipa is the phenom who’s permanently on our playlists.

- Joceline Yan

There’s always that unapologetically in-your-face summer pop song that loosens your shoulders, gets your hips swaying and legs swinging, long before your brain can catch up to the rhythm. This summer, ’Blow Your Mind (Mwah)’ from Dua Lipa’s eponymous debut studio album, was that song. The combination of poppy beats and take-no-cr*p lyrics were the perfected formula for a women positive bop, but pair her sweet-and-sultry charm with perfectly curated pastel-tinted visuals, and you have a chart-topping smash hit. This perfect slice of summery nonchalance is just another testament to Dua’s versatile duality and magnetic appeal as one of the world’s greatest discovered talent, and rising star.

The first impression of Dua Lipa is that she perfectly captures the vibe of a modern millennial girl and just listening to the husky power in her raspy, low voice on the opening notes of ‘Genesis’ (the first track on the album) was enough to know this album would be different from the music put out by overly-autotuned peers.

The 12-track album, with part-dance pop bangers and part-revenge ballads, teases your emotions with musical highs and lows, but is also all about the girl-power badassery that she preaches on the daily.

If you needed any more persuading, just look at the music video for her song ’New Rules’, which talks of unrequited love with a man. But through the power of positive affirmation and self-love (no need to insert a list of star-studded names), Dua and her fearless friends establish and prove that 1) You don’t need a dude (or lady) to make yourself feel good and that 2) Sisterhood really is not about the blood you share.