Dua Lipa is all about ‘Radical Optimism,’ in her music and other pursuits

In 2022, she founded a newsletter called Service95, what she views as an extension of a childhood blog, to “tell stories from all around the world, not solely from a Western lens,” she says. It has grown into a website, podcast and book club: “It’s just another hobby of mine that I’ve somehow managed to turn into a job, which is just great,” she says, smiling.

“My day job, which is my music career, which I love, comes with constantly being online. And I think for me, at least now I’m searching for other things, and not doomscrolling on Twitter,” she says of her media enterprise. “At least this way I’m like learning something new about the world. I love having that kind of duality in my life.”

It’s a duality fueled by curiosity, like when Lipa made headlines late last year for challenging Apple CEO Tim Cook in an interview on her podcast over reports of children in the Democratic Republic of Congo mining cobalt for iPhones.

“That was scary, and really exciting,” she says. “You never really know what to expect when you go in to interview someone.”

A few days after visiting the AP’s New York headquarters, Lipa appears at a public high school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to speak to students in a conversation moderated by Drew Barrymore.

“One of the things I admire about her is how incredibly intelligent she is,” Barrymore says in her introduction, commending Lipa for not only being an “icon,” but someone who is “globally aware.”

In conversation, Lipa is generous and warm, particularly to a freshman drama student named Dolce, who is also Albanian, and expresses a desire to make it in the entertainment industry. Lipa tells her that identity, intentionally or not, is woven into her music.

At the end of the event, Lipa says she feels “optimistic about life overall, everything that comes with it,” and takes a moment to look out at the audience. “I’m the most optimistic about the next generation.”

And then, almost as swiftly as she arrived, Lipa leaves. A lingering positivity permeates the air. It recalls something she told the AP earlier in the week: that she strives to be “violently happy” in life and in her endeavors.

“You sometimes have to push yourself into that feeling,” she says. Remaining grateful is “definitely a muscle that needs to be exercised.”

On “Radical Optimism,” she’s written the workout soundtrack.