Dua Lipa Just 'Wants to Make Someone Smile' with Her New Album 'Future Nostalgia'

In the new issue of PEOPLE, Dua Lipa opens up about her new album Future Nostalgia, the making of the album and the album’s early release.

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Dua, who’s been social distancing inside of a London Airbnb with her boyfriend, model Anwar Hadid says, “We’re all just trying to be safe and stay inside and protect the people around us.  If I could make someone smile or give someone a moment of comfort during this time, then I’ve done my job.”

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Working on a second studio album, Dua explains the pressure she felt going into the studio, “I was like, ‘Oh my God, I have to try and do something with the second record.’ But I wanted to get away from all those pressures and other people’s expectations and opinions of what I should be doing because I felt like then I would try and recreate ‘New Rules’ and never get anywhere.  I wanted to mature as an artist.”

Dua’s self-titled debut album dropped back in 2017, the album included ‘New Rules’ and she scored two GRAMMYs, one being ‘Best New Artist.’  So when asked if the pressure was on, Dua had only one response, “Of course it was.”

Believe it or not, it was the title that kickstarted the album process, “I wanted to touch on memories that I had growing up listening to music that my parents loved, like Jamiroquai and Blondie and Prince — and recreate them for now. It’s a celebration of being able to be open and vulnerable and to dance and be happy. Dance-crying is very much a thing.  “I wanted to make sure that every session ended up with a dance-off basically in the studio and that everybody was feeling good.”

And the first song completed? A funky, disco-sounding track called ‘Levitating,’ “That song really helped me explain to everyone else — my team and the producers and people that I was working with — like, ‘Okay, this is it …’ I felt like had both elements of the future and nostalgia in it. I just started basing everything off of it. It had to fit in that world and that was the song,” Dua explains.

“It felt to me like something that wasn’t happening on the radio, and I wanted to try and do something different.  I felt a lot more confident going in and writing on this record. I knew exactly what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it,” Dua shares.