Dua Lipa is floating in the ocean as the sun begins to set behind her. She looks strong and calm, except for the looming threat of a giant shark whose fins break through the water just a few feet away.
The image is the cover of her third album, “Radical Optimism,” which will be released on Friday. It’s a fitting visual for an album about finding and defending peace in dangerous waters, and it’s a fitting visual statement for the Grammy-winning pop superstar, who has long identified her sound as “dancing and crying.” This is the maturation of the theme.
That cheeky phrase sums up the clubby glee of her biggest pop hit, but “Radical Optimism,” with its psychedelic electropop, complicates it.
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“There’s definitely more catharsis on the third album,” she recently told The Associated Press.
“Future Nostalgia was an opportunity to make a very sophisticated pop-dance-disco record,” she says of her second 2020 release. Alternatively, ‘Radical Optimism’ is shaped by what they’ve learned from touring the world over the past few years, drawing influences from trip-hop and Britpop, as well as a newfound interest in live instrumentation.
“It was always free flowing,” she says of the creative process for her latest album. “Also, there was no formula per se, but I always had a pop sensibility in the back of my mind. But I just wanted to experiment and create something new. But this was always a kind of I think it was an album.” It’s something I’ve always wanted to make. ”
Dua Lipa poses for a portrait to promote her new album “Radical Optimism” in New York on April 26, 2024. (Drew Gurian/Invision/AP)
In more ways than one: Around the time of her first album, Lipa wrote that she wanted to work with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker — especially on their third album. This sign paid off, and he became an important ally of Radical Optimism.
“It was like something deep down, instinctively, told me I had earned it,” she says. “Over time, you get to work with a creative person who is so inspirational to you, and you get to be in the room and learn from him.”
As for the album’s title, she says, “It’s about euphoria and togetherness.”
“Dance music has a long history of creating safe spaces, and I just want to represent that,” she added.
She has worked hard to get there. Ripa, now 28, started her career at the age of 15, convincing her family to move from Kosovo to her native London to pursue her pop career. She went to school, modeled, and released her self-titled debut album in 2017, which included the dance-pop hits “New Rules” and “One Kiss.” Then came her nu-disco-electro-pop of 2020’s “Future Nostalgia,” which cemented her status as one of the biggest players in pop music. Not bad for a unique voice in the streaming era, where she’s finding it harder than ever to capture and maintain the public’s attention.
In 2024, her pop songs contain a kind of learned resilience. Melodies layered over unusual synth sounds, vocal ranges extended (particularly on the cut ‘Falling Forever’), and dance breaks inspired by British rave culture and format vendors Primal Scream and Massive Attack. This is an element that Lipa wants. She didn’t dare try on her last album. From working with Parker, producer Danny L. Haar, songwriter Tobias Jesso Jr. (known for his work with Harry Styles and Adele), and Lipa’s longtime collaborator Caroline Ilin. Was born.
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“She understands how to deal with a lot of opinions in a room, including her own,” Jesso told The Associated Press. “She doesn’t value her stuff more than anyone else’s. She simply uses what’s most effective for what she’s trying to accomplish.”
“We were a band,” Ripa says of the group. The first day they wrote “Illusion.” The second day was “Happy for You.” (“I had never written a song like that before,” she points out. “And I loved that version of myself.”) Day three was the post-disco pop “Whatcha Doing.” In bright, airy studios in London and Malibu, they honed what would become Lipa’s most ambitious and euphoric sound yet.
That experimentation is also reflected in Lipa’s efforts. She’s acting more – “little baby roles”! After playing mermaid Barbie in the blockbuster movie Barbie (she also contributed the Grammy-nominated universal song “Dance the Night” to the soundtrack), ” (a short performance), he says with a smile after playing the voluptuous spy Lagrange. Associated Press film critic Jake Coyle called it the best few minutes of the film).
In 2022, she founded a newsletter called Service95. She considers this an extension of her childhood blog, to “tell stories from around the world, not just from a Western perspective,” she says. It has grown into a website, a podcast, and a book club. “This is just one of my hobbies, but I managed to turn it into a job, which is really great,” she says with a smile.
“My day job, a career in music that I love, requires me to be online all the time. And at least for now, I’m looking for other things to do instead of doomscrolling on Twitter. “I think so,” she says of the media. companies. “At least this way I feel like I’m learning something new about the world. I love having that kind of duality in my life.”
Late last year, Ripa made headlines when she challenged Apple CEO Tim Cook in a podcast interview over reports that children in the Democratic Republic of Congo were mining cobalt for iPhones. It is a duality driven by curiosity.
“It was scary and really exciting,” she says. “When you interview someone, you never really know what’s going to happen.”
Days after visiting The Associated Press’ New York headquarters, Ripa appeared at a public high school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to speak to students in a conversation moderated by Drew Barrymore.
“One of the things I admire about her is that she is incredibly intelligent,” Barrymore said in the foreword, noting that Ripa is not only an “icon” but also a “globally recognized… He praised him for being a person who has “
During their conversation, Ripa is particularly generous and warm towards Dolce, a new drama student who is also Albanian, and expresses her desire to succeed in the entertainment industry. Whether intentionally or not, Ripa’s identity is woven into her own music, she says.
At the end of the event, Ripa said she felt “optimistic about life in general and everything that comes with it,” and looked out at the audience for a moment. She said, “I’m the most optimistic about the next generation.”
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And Ripa left just as quickly as she arrived. A lasting positive vibe permeates the air. The article is a reminder of what she told The Associated Press earlier this week: that she strives to be “ferociously happy” in her life and in her own endeavors.
“Sometimes you have to push yourself into those feelings,” she says. Maintaining gratitude, she says, is “definitely a muscle I need to work on.”
For “Radical Optimism,” she wrote a workout soundtrack.
