Shadowing Practice: Dua Lipa on leaving bad relationships and choosing Radical Optimism - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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I think there's just this massive stigma around pop music overall, and especially as a female artist to be taken seriously,
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unless you're behind a piano or a guitar.
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Then if you're just making songs that feel good, that have the aim to make you feel positive, make you feel good, that they don't have depth.
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Dua Lipa.
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Nice to meet you.
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So nice to meet you, Tom.
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How are you doing?
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I'm all right.
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Congratulations on the record.
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I really love it.
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Thank you so much.
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Thank you.
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I'm so happy for it to finally be coming out into the world.
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I think I was just saying to you before we turned the microphones on that it's like a weird, cool, psychedelic dance record.
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Oh, cool.
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I mean, that's what I...
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I wanted it to have that real freedom that I feel like psychedelia has.
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and I feel like um I don't think that the
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when I think about like psychedelic music I think about like the summer of love yeah
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and I feel like we spent two years of our life kind of indoors during the pandemic collectively um
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and we're all kind of like figuring out the new normal and it It feels like now we've kind of, we're just back in the swing of things.
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And so for this record to come out, it feels like a real kind of free flowing moment for that time,
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for that kind of radical optimism within all the madness, so.
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Well, it's like speaking of the Summer Lovey.
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I mean, we're in Jimi Hendrix's studio, so that's pretty psychedelic.
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Yeah, the hub of it.
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I was listening to this interview with Caroline Aylin, who's one of your most close collaborators.
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And she had a line that I found really interesting about you.
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And she said, every studio session with Dua starts with the truth.
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So what were the truths or the truth that you were exploring on this record?
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I guess, you know, my really close friendship with Caroline over the years, we've worked on all three of my albums now together,
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has just allowed this sense of closeness that I can go into a room
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and just be myself and talk about things that are happening in my life.
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And I know that together we can write songs that allow me to tell my story,
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but also offer me a kind of sense of protection in a way that I can write songs from my experience,
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but I can also mask them in mysticism.
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And whether it's Houdini or it's illusion or whatever way that I want to describe it,
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that also gives me like a safety net on how I want to tell my stories.
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And it always starts with the truth because it's always like a dear diary.
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I come into the studio and especially this album,
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it was just a fun year of me just coming in every day into the studio and being like, well, this happened last night and
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so let's write about it let's talk about like a story like oh we went out last night
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and then this happened this happened it was really was really how it was
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and um yeah a lot of the stories just kind of stemmed from um
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yeah personal relationships things that were going on like ups and downs and good dates and bad ones and uh Yeah,
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it's like girl chat, you know, sitting down and just like putting it all down onto paper.
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What's Houdini about?
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So Houdini is about, I guess, just really like knowing your worth.
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It's like finally coming to a place of being like, if you're good enough, I'll stay.
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And if you're not, I know when it's time for me to leave.
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Like I know when a situation is good for me or not.
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And that was probably something I wasn't able to do as well previously in my life.
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What's that?
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When I was writing, knowing when to like leave.
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Like a bad and negative relationship or something, those are things that I had to learn through.
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I stuck it out.
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My first ever relationship, I stayed in for way longer than I should have done
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because I felt like that was the way that things were supposed to be.
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Until I was like, wait a second, this person doesn't make me feel good or isn't very nice to me, isn't kind to me, puts me down,
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says things that make me feel uncomfortable, whatever it is.
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You just kind of learn from all those experiences.
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And I'm at a place now where I just won't stand for that, not even for a second.
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And Houdini is a very strong song of like, catch me or I'm leaving, kind of thing.
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You said something in your first answer that I'm sort of stuck on.
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Mm.
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I thought so.
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One per interview, Dua do it.
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You said, it allows me to tell my story and speak openly while still offering me protection.
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Protection from what?
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I think when you have, like for me, like my life is so public, whether I like it or not.
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Yeah.
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So whether that's me walking down the street or where I am
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or what I'm doing there is so much of myself
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that I offer up anyway there's also so much of myself
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that I've made peace with the fact that
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so many people have an insight into my life I've also made peace with the fact
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that people are going to make up scenarios about me
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or they're going to believe what they want to believe about me
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and I've also allowed myself to be okay with
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so many of those things because I get to do what I love every single day
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and that's make music and be on stage and perform
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and travel the world so those are the sacrifices that i've made
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when i write my songs that's my therapy how i choose
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to dress them up that's my therapy how i you know i can talk about my
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personal experiences but i don't have to necessarily like say the name yeah that that can be for me and
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the person who maybe hears it and will know it's about them but i don't have to go and like
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paint a very like, I don't have to put someone on blast in order for me to get my like, catharsis in a way.
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Yeah, I know what you mean.
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I never considered that.
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I was thinking just then about records that were made here, you know, and in the 60s and 70s, like Stevie Wonder records and Jimi Hendrix records,
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or, and I don't know if I ever, I don't know
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if back then people were going like oh well there was
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no like reddit message board to talk about who you make
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me feel like a natural woman is about yeah you know
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yeah that's all that's a whole different world for you it's yeah for sure
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and and also you know the the sacrifices maybe
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that I've chosen to make about my public life don't necessarily
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represent the same for maybe someone who I'm writing the song
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about yeah no yeah They might not be a public person like I am.
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So regardless of whatever the situation is, it's like you hold certain details back, but still at the same time putting enough out there
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that I feel like I'm telling my story in the way that I want it to be heard.
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She's good on you for knowing that.
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A lot of people don't know that early on.
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A lot of people figure that out later and kind of look back and go like, oh, I wish I hadn't or I wish I hadn't.
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Like it feels like right away you sort of knew where
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you wanted to draw the line about how much people knew about you and how much people knew your art?
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Um... Or am I wrong?
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No, I just, I think it just came very, like, naturally to me.
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Yeah, and I guess that's like the fun part about writing a song.
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It's like you're telling your story, but you can dress it up how you like.
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Where did radical optimism come from?
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Radical optimism was a term that was, I guess now I like to think of it as gifted to me by a friend of mine.
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We were having a conversation for his podcast and he goes, he's like, you know, like a couple of my friends came up to me and they were just like, you know what we need in the world is radical optimism.
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And I was like, wow, a radical optimism.
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What an incredible, I guess,
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like what an incredible phrase when you put two words together
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and you get that juxtaposition between something that I guess in a way it's like being like violently happy in a way.
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You know, it's like when things aren't going well, how do you make yourself feel better?
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How do you roll with the punches?
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How do you pick yourself back up when things aren't working out?
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How do you look at the positive side of things?
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How do you go?
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Okay, in every experience, there's something to learn from it.
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and I love to think about hindsight.
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That's been something that I've gone back on a lot.
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What do you mean by that?
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How do you feel?
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Like it's so often that when like a month later down the line, you look back on something and you're like,
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man, I was freaking out over nothing or that felt like such a big deal to me at the time.
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And now looking in hindsight, you know, everything kind of figures itself out.
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And I think it's...
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It's that.
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It's taking everything with a pinch of salt and being like, you know what, everything's going to be fine.
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Yesterday I was having a conversation with a friend of mine and he said something that helps him when he's getting overwhelmed.
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It was something that someone said to him very early on when he's getting overwhelmed is, it's okay, this day has to end too, you know, in some way.
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So you make the most of whatever's happening today.
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But it's going to be gone soon at some point.
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And sometimes when things are so intense and so overwhelming and you're like, this is like the worst day of my life.
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Like sometimes before I go to bed, I go, OK, I never have to live through that day ever again.
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And tomorrow I'll just figure it out some other way, whatever happens.
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But today that's done.
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I'll close my eyes.
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I'll go to sleep.
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It's over, you know, and you just figure it out.
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There's a choice, though, isn't it?
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I read, I don't know, have you ever read Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach?
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No. Oh, no. But I have read another book by her.
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Yeah.
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Radical Compassion, maybe?
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Maybe with a bunch of incredible like case studies and she's she's amazing.
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Yeah.
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I'm a meditator.
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Are you a meditator?
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So so I do like guided meditation.
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I find that like the easiest, but I love to do them in the morning and in the evening.
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And that gives me just some time for myself, for sure, which is important.
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But radical, not to paraphrase her,
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but radical acceptance is about people think it's about accepting whatever's going to happen to you no matter what, you know, like, oh, you know,
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no matter what happens, I'm just going to accept it and just try to move on my life.
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It's actually, in my opinion, about offering compassion to yourself.
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That like when things are hard, when things are tough, or when you go through a breakup or someone's awful to you or there's something going on,
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offering compassion to yourself as you move through it, except not hoping that things will change, but accepting that things will not change in that moment,
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that this did happen to you, and offering yourself compassion at the same time.
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So I guess when I heard radical optimism in your album title, So what it sounded like to me was a choice
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that as the world is painful or as I go through painful things, whether they be interpersonally in my relationships or something I see in the news,
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I choose compassionately for myself to remain optimistic.
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Totally.
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One thousand percent.
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I feel like I've consistently done that in life and in my music.
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And I've just always felt like I always want to put an optimistic spin on things.
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I always see the music as like a mantra.
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I want to say good things.
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I feel like the more I say things, the more they come true.
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So if I'm going to sing it over and over, it's like a manifestation.
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Yeah.
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Something's going to happen so I gotta be careful what I say.
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And so I like to think of things in that way.
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Like I love for them to have a positive spin
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if I'm gonna sing them for a long time
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because I'm manifesting these words
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and I'm gonna be singing them to a lot of people who are gonna be singing them back to me.
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Let's put some good shit out into the world.
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Yeah, fair enough.
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It reminds me, what's that thing you said at the Grammys?
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I used to think I had to write sad songs for my music to matter music to matter was
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that we said I said something along those lines of I
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just I think there's just this massive stigma around pop music overall
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and especially as a female artist to be taken seriously unless you're behind a piano or a guitar
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that then if you're just making songs that feel good
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that have the aim to make you feel positive make you feel good
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that they don't have depth which I don't And I don't want to subscribe to that at all,
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because I feel like sometimes writing things that are optimistic, that are happy, that do have depth, is maybe harder.
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Because a sad feeling is much easier to tap into.
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It's almost like a bad Twitter comment.
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It will linger in your mind way longer than somebody being nice to you for a moment.
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So sometimes a sadder, harder feeling is much easier to tap into rather than...
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I feel good and I want to grasp that energy in some way.
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But I should say, I mean, this record is not all rainbows and sunshine and...
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No. Pink pens.
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I don't know why that came to mind.
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I don't know about pink pens.
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You know about pink pens where they have the little feather on the top?
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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I hate to break it.
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Here's my review of your record.
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It's not all pink pens, Dua.
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When you're writing it, when you're going through...
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You're writing about what you need as someone to love you.
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You're writing about what you will accept and what you won't accept in a relationship.
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If you drill down to these poppy, dancey, beautiful, groovy...
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Dance crying records.
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Yeah, dance crying.
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There's something there, you know?
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Yeah, I mean, they're all like, first of all, yeah, from the initial thing that we started talking about,
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it's like the truth, like the underlying honest things about me and who I am.
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And even songs that some people see as sad, which is like Happy For You or These Walls,
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I don't see at all like happy for you feels like
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a full 180 maturing of being able to see somebody um
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do well you know be good and happy and you to feel
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that for them as well and to want that for them
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and i think that's a really um beautiful and respectful thing to come out of a relationship You know,
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it doesn't work out for you, but it's how amazing to be able to see someone and be like, yeah, you deserve that.
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That's amazing.
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In a non-passive aggressive way.
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Yeah, that's amazing.
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Oh, I'm so happy for you.
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Oh yeah, that's great.
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I think you can also read the lyrics without hearing the song and be like, this sounds passive aggressive.
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Well, I wondered if it was because of your love for clubs.
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I know one of the big influences on this record was Screamadelica, the Primal Scream record.
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And I got to talk to Bobby Gillespie one time.
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Oh, you did?
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Did you ever meet Bobby?
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No, I've not met him.
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He's a wild man.
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I have not met him.
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But I've heard he's amazing.
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Lovely fellow.
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And he sort of had a back, he said something to me that, I was thinking about it when I was listening to this record and reading about you, which is a weird thing to say to another human.
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But I said, I was reading articles about you, do it.
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You're gonna have to live with it.
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And he said that, so he came up in like sort of angry, dark punk, like Jesus and Mary Chain and shoegaze music.
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And he said Primal Scream kind of really started
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because he started going to clubs and to raves and realizing the joy that's around him.
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I'm going to tell you something about me.
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I have never in my life, I don't know if you can tell from the beard, I've never gone to a club.
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What?
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In my life.
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What?
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Yeah, in my life. By choice?
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You just didn't feel the urge to want to even check it out?
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I think my friends just didn't go.
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We were going to bars.
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We were going to see shows.
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We never went to clubs in our lives.
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So can you tell me from, I feel like you're gonna walk out.
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No, not at all.
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I'm just, I'm...
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Is this it?
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Did you take this off?
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No, I'm intrigued.
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Okay.
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At that, I guess I've just...
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I guess it's not even curiosity.
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My whole life was just so surrounded around like, my parents, they're very lively.
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And they love a party.
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What does that mean?
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They're just like fun party people.
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I think really what it comes down to.
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And so I guess I remember being a kid and them taking me everywhere with them.
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And we would go on holiday and they would go to a bar
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and there would be live music
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and I would stay there until 3 o'clock in the morning until I would fall asleep
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and they would still be up and hanging out
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and chatting always surrounded by music and dancing and people like having community
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and these joyous moments
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that as i was growing up i was looking for my own version of
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that of what they had and what they
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would go out exploring and so you know they would always bring me in
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but i was like okay how can i do this with my friends
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and so clubbing
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and going out dancing was such a right of passage almost the The second I got a little bit older, I was like, I want to go dancing.
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I want to be free.
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I want to feel the music.
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And the sweatier I got in and on a night out, that was kind of like the badge of honor of like the fun night out,
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the story that you would then tell until the next weekend when you would go back out again.
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And I mean, one of my early job, when I was 17, I worked in a nightclub and, you know, I just have these,
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it's such a big part of my life.
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And it's that sense of community.
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It's also how I feel in large groups of people at a festival, in a crowd.
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You share this like common language.
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It's so fun and joyous.
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And that connection that you have with a complete stranger who's next to you, but you both love the same song and you're just in this.
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But I guess you would have the same thing in a bar, at a show, at a gig, whatever it is.
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Yeah, singing songs.
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So I came up playing traditional music in corners and playing tunes with people.
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So I get it.
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So it's a similar thing.
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It's just that one...
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It's that connection, that community.
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But can you still do that?
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Like, you're Dua Lipa now.
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Can you still go to stuff?
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A thousand percent.
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Do you have to...
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You know, who was it we talked to the other day?
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Noah Kahn.
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Do you know him?
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Yes, the country artist.
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Yeah, yeah, country folky guy.
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And he had to wear...
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He told me he went to an Olivia Rodrigo show wearing a wig so he could be anonymous.
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Really?
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And go to the show.
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Yeah, that's what he could kind of do.
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That's cool.
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You can go to clubs.
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You can do it. For sure.
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I mean, I, yeah.
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You can get that joy.
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You can get that stuff.
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One thousand percent.
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And it's so much fun.
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And I go to the festivals and I jump in with everyone.
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And I don't know.
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I just, I love it.
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I love going dancing and being out till late.
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And like the funny stories that you get after a night out
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and um yeah it's all making sense to me a little bit more now because because well first of all
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first of all i need to go to a club uh
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i mean i've been in them i've been in them for like events
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and stuff like that i gotta go in
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and dance a little bit yeah yeah for me like i
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love it i love throwing parties i love a rave i
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love you know um in the summer i go to um ibiza
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and during the whole week i chill
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but on a monday night there's one club night
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that i go to and they just bring djs from all around the world
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and it's just a full-fledged rave do they play your music
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dc 10 no it's it's it's uh it's more hard it's it's more hardcore i guess um
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but i find djs from there
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and then i i I actually had a couple of them remix some songs for the record now.
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Like I had Chloe Kayat remix Training Season and I met her on a night out.
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And Adam Port is incredible as well.
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He's part of Kleiner Music and I got introduced to him at this club night.
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Well, what's making when I say it's all coming and making sense to me right now is because again, reading about you is the story of you, which is well publicized, is very interesting to me.
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That your folks moved from Kosovo to London to flee the war.
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You're born in the UK.
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When you're 11, you move back to Kosovo, which is not easy to go back to your place.
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Sort of the place where you're, like, the place you have an idea of from your parents.
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You know what I mean?
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And then there's these shows, after Kosovo gains independence, they have these shows, like 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg played there.
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That's right, right?
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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And all of a sudden, I guess you're around other people and dancing and there's probably something beautiful happening there.
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Yeah, it's amazing.
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I mean, 50 Cent, I'll never forget that.
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He came and played in the stadium.
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And people in Kosovo listen to a lot of hip hop music.
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So when I lived there, there was like this heavy influx of just hip hop.
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So it was a lot of Biggie and Tupac and 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg and Method Man and Red Man.
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Yeah.
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And that was my first show.
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They were actually the first to come to Kosovo and
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that was my first show I ever went to when I was 15.
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And are you going, I want to be up there, I want to do that?
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All my dreams about music and performing involved being on stage.
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So I, yeah, but I think it was just like, it's just a dream.
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You know, I would see people on stage, but it was just like trying to figure out how you get to that point.
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And I just knew that London was that place for me.
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Like I needed to be in a place where everything was happening.
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I needed to be in a place that I felt like, well, I mean, that was just bigger than Kosovo.
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It just, at the time, like now I was having a conversation
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about how much there's so many artists that you can discover from all around the world.
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And it's so easy to tap into different cultures and different places.
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And you just didn't have that.
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You know, you couldn't really be in Kosovo when I was 15
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and put music out hope that you know someone might find you
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and you just had to be in london
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and i was just i guess fortunate that i was born in london
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because my parents had moved there how old were you
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when you said to them like i'm going to go back
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and become a pop star i was i was 14
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when i started planting the seed i was 15 i moved back to london um
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but it was also along the lines of i need to go back and finish my GCSEs and maybe go to uni, but also want to do music. So, yeah.
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I've heard you ask them since, why did you let me go?
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Yeah.
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What was their answer?
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I'm a hard person to say no to.
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I thought it was going to be, oh, we believed in you, do we believe in your...
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No, but they did.
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It was, I want to get you out of the house.
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They just, yeah.
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No, they were just so supportive and they just put a lot of trust in me.
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And I think their trust was also something that I didn't want to misuse.
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And the fact that they let me do that, I tried to be a good kid, you know?
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When did you know it was going to work out?
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Your eyes widened.
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It's just such, it was, I think for them, so scary when I was like, all right, I'm going to take,
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because I finished my compulsory school and then I was like, I'm going to take a year off and I'm just going to focus on music.
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And, you know, I don't know what it's like to be a parent, but I think now having conversations with them, it's so daunting when your kid just wants to be like,
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I'm going to focus on music, I'm going to take a year off, I'm going to work different jobs and I'm going to try and do this.
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I think for them, they were like, OK, you sure you don't want to go to uni?
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You sure you don't want to do that and that at the same time?
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And I was so headstrong on the fact that I'm like, I'm going to take one year
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and I'm just going to focus on trying to get my music out there in some way.
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And I guess even when I got signed, I didn't know if it was going to happen.
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And all I knew, it was like I quit my job in a restaurant that I was working in in Soho.
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And that was enough to go on, was like, okay, I'm working on an album and I'm working on music.
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It doesn't really mean a lot.
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But it doesn't mean a lot until I had a song called Be The One that came out.
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And then I was starting to book some festivals.
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And I was like, okay, I'm on stage.
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I'm doing what I love.
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And those rooms were getting bigger.
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I was going on a tour.
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I then supported Troye Savannah in America.
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Things were kind of changing and shifting.
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My first ever Glastonbury that I performed in, that was very early doors.
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It was the second Glasto that was just before my first album came out.
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That's when I felt like things were really shifting because...
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I remember peering out from the curtain, the show was in a tent, and not very many people were out there.
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And I was like, you know what, I'm just going to go out and have fun.
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And this is Glastonbury, it's my favourite festival, I'm just going to go and enjoy it and it was being televised onto the BBC, that performance.
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And just as I had gone up on stage, the whole tent was packed.
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It was like sardines.
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And I remember turning to my band and being like, oh my god, there's so many people here.
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And that's when everything shifted for me.
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I was like, OK, things are starting to happen.
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And I just wanted to keep working.
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I felt like I was strapped to a rocket.
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That's the only way that I can describe it, because I just took every opportunity that I had to work,
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to travel, to do more shows, to tour.
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I just said yes and I just kept moving and working.
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And you can exhale and your parents can exhale a little bit too.
436
And go, okay.
437
Yeah, things are happening.
438
I saw, I listened to a couple of episodes of your podcast to get ready for this too, and then I watched you on Stephen Colbert.
439
Oh yeah.
440
And you had a really lovely moment.
441
I pay a lot of attention to interview questions and stuff like that.
442
I think a lot about them.
443
And he asked you to ask him a question, and I was so blown away by the question you asked him, to be honest.
444
You asked him, I don't know if you remember, how does your faith intersect with your art?
445
He's so vocal about his faith on his show.
446
I think that's something that people really connect with Colbert in that way.
447
And he's just so, his response was so beautiful.
448
He quoted Henry James.
449
And it's so profound.
450
And I think I was really taken back by him.
451
It was wonderful.
452
Similar to the question you asked Stephen about how does his faith intersect with his art and his career, how does being, when you talk about things like protection
453
and you talk about things like work and you talk about things like drive,
454
how does being a child of displaced people intersect with your art and your career?
455
Do you know what I mean? yeah one thousand percent i
456
i think it almost has everything to do with it in
457
uh in a weird way i think having seen my parents adapt to
458
so many different scenarios to me moving from you know
459
london to kosovo to back to london being adaptable i think that in itself all those things led me to
460
the art that i'm making now into the way that i see things the way my perspective is the way that
461
i have this outlook on rolling with the punches that
462
if things are bad they're never going to be bad for
463
too long you're just going to be able to you just have to figure out how you navigate
464
and move through it and my work ethic is is that of like an immigrant work ethic where i just
465
I feel like I need to work really hard to get to where I want to be.
466
Like nothing's given and nothing's taken for granted.
467
And everything that I want and everything that I have, I've worked really, really hard to get there.
468
And that's something that I'm really grateful for.
469
because I don't know it just pushes me to do better
470
and be better and really enjoy all the little things along the way
471
and see every baby step as a little victory
472
and not be like that wasn't good enough
473
but seeing everything as part of the journey
474
and yeah I think it's I think it's everything does it explain the scheduling thing like
475
that you schedule your entire life to the 15 minutes I I wondered that.
476
You just want to fit a lot in?
477
I just want to make the most of every single day.
478
Yeah, that's beautiful, dude.
479
That's beautiful.
480
I want to make the most of every single day.
481
But really, like I am not in, I guess, yeah, it sounds like cliche,
482
but I try and fit in as much as I can
483
and do as many fun things as I can
484
and work as hard as I can
485
and that's why I feel like I can work hard
486
and have fun and go on holiday and do the tour
487
and see my friends and have time for yoga and maybe the meditation and see my siblings when I can.
488
And it's all those things.
489
I feel like my job takes up so much of my time.
490
And especially when I'm on tour and the schedule is so back to back, I miss out on a lot of things.
491
So when I'm not on a crazy regimented schedule of touring,
492
then I'm like, right, how many dinners can I fit in?
493
How much time can I spend with my family?
494
How much time can I see my friends?
495
Where can I travel?
496
What can I do that isn't surrounded by a work thing?
497
I have a weekend here.
498
Let's go.
499
Let's enjoy.
500
Let's have fun.
501
Whatever it is, make the most of it.
502
I feel so lucky that this is my life and I get to do this.
503
Why the hell should I not have all the fun that I could possibly have while doing so? And I love it.
504
I got the wrap up, but I wanted to tell you what a joy it is to get a chance to talk to you.
505
How much I love the record.
506
Thank you.
507
How much future nostalgia helped me through the pandemic.
508
Thank you so much.
509
And I just love the way you think about music and art.
510
And I really appreciate your time.
511
Thank you.
512
I really appreciate talking to you.
513
You're an incredible interviewer.
514
I was thinking that the whole time.
515
Yeah, you're fantastic.
516
Oh, come on, thanks.
517
Yeah, no, for sure.
518
So thank you, I've loved that.
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🎤 Shadowing Practice with Dua Lipa | English Speaking & Listening Training (Vocabulary + Fluency)
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Why This Dua Lipa Interview Is Perfect for English Speaking Practice
This video is a goldmine for learners! Dua Lipa and the interviewer use natural, conversational English—no stiff phrases. The dialogue flows like real life, with pauses, casual expressions, and relatable topics (music, relationships, growth). It’s ideal for shadowspeak (or shadow speak) practice, where you mimic the speaker’s tone, rhythm, and pronunciation. Plus, the mix of personal stories and reflective comments helps you learn to express emotions and ideas clearly—key for IELTS speaking practice.
Breaking Down Natural English: 3 Phrases to Master
- “I'm so happy for it to finally be coming out into the world.” Notice the casual “for it to finally be coming out”—native speakers often use this structure to show excitement about a long-awaited event. It’s more natural than “I'm happy it is coming out.”
- “It feels like a real kind of free flowing moment.” The phrase “kind of” softens the statement, making it sound less formal. “Free flowing” is a common collocation (words that go together) to describe something easy and unforced—great for describing creativity or conversations.
- “If you're good enough, I'll stay. And if you're not, I know when it's time for me to leave.” Short, direct sentences with clear conditionals (“if… then”) are perfect for practicing pronunciation. The pauses between clauses help you emphasize key points, a skill crucial for improving English pronunciation.
Your 5-Minute Practice Routine: Shadowing Made Simple
Try this shadowspeaks exercise to boost your speaking skills fast: 1. Watch 10 seconds of the video, focusing on Dua’s tone and mouth movements. 2. Pause, then repeat her words immediately, matching her speed and stress (e.g., “radical OPTIMISM within all the MADness”). 3. Record yourself. Compare it to the video—did you catch the “kind of” pause? 4. Do this 5 times with the same clip. By the end, you’ll notice your pronunciation and fluency improve! This routine works because shadowing trains your brain to think and speak in English, not just translate. It’s a quick win for anyone prepping for IELTS or wanting to sound more natural.
Ready to start? Hit play, mimic Dua’s confidence, and watch your English speaking skills soar—one conversation at a time!
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | we've worked · has just allowed · I've made |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be taken · were made · be heard |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | person who maybe · someone who I · sure, which is |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.