Dua’s grandfather, Seit Lipa, was head of the Institute for the History of Kosovo when it was targeted for closure by Serbian law in 1992, a move that a special rapporteur for the United Nations later called a sign of burgeoning human rights violations. Though the war that would make Kosovo a matter of global concern wouldn’t begin until 1998, Pristina in 1995 was already a difficult place to live for its ethnic Albanian majority. Lipa was born in London in 1995, about three years after her parents, Dukagjin and Anesa, emigrated from Pristina, a midsize city in Kosovo, then still part of Yugoslavia. And I’m really just going to focus on being great at everything that I do.’ ” And I’m going to make sure that I get this album the way that I want it to. I was like, ‘All right, I’m just going to shut everything out. “People just telling me that I wasn’t good enough or that I wasn’t deserving of it or whatever it was….

“There was just this pressure,” Lipa said. Its emotional and dynamic range is broad, yet it all passes by effortlessly. It marries the efficiency of structured pop with the curiosity of dance music, yet in between pulsing bass lines and naturalistic percussion, it’s full of silence: little spaces here and there that telegraph a breath before a song blooms into something new. It takes a buffet-table approach to the sonic decorations from decades’ worth of disco, funk, and synth pop while also showcasing Lipa’s keen ear for complex vocal melodies and her distinctively raspy and lithe voice.

Future Nostalgia would have been an unusual record even if it hadn’t arrived at the beginning of a global crisis. But her story is one of continent-crossing perseverance, a bit of luck, and one of those generational pop personalities who simply will not be denied. To American listeners, Lipa’s success may seem to have come from nowhere. “THERE WAS JUST THIS PRESSURE…PEOPLE JUST TELLING ME THAT I WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH OR THAT I WASN’T DESERVING OF IT OR WHATEVER IT WAS…”

Dua lipa popular songs