Has Dua Lipa’s air of mystery made her pop’s new superstar? Taylor Swift gets personal in her lyrics, but the English singer’s aversion of oversharing encourages listeners to get ‘close to the music’

When Dua Lipa was 15 years old, she left her parents and two younger siblings behind in the family’s native Kosovo and moved more or less on her own to London.

The plan, at least as understood by her parents (who only agreed to it because she’d be rooming with the older daughter of a family friend), was to finish high school and then enter university. By the time Lipa graduated, though, she’d turned her focus to music, posting covers online and recording hookey originals she co-wrote while supporting herself as a hostess at a Mexican joint in London’s Soho neighbourhood.

“I kept telling my parents, if I take a gap year, then I don’t have to pay off my university debt,” the singer says today with a laugh.

Asked how long she was willing to stretch that gap year – how long she was prepared to grind in the hopes of becoming a pop star – she smiles as though amused by the misconception that she’d been struggling.

“That was a great life – I was working in a restaurant, I was partying all night, then I’d wake up in the morning and go to the studio,” she says. “I had so much fun.”

“I’ve always been persistent, and I’ve always fought for the things that I’ve wanted,” Lipa, now 25, says in her crisp English accent. “So as much as this was my passion, I feel like it was also my destiny.”

A decade after she set out from home, it’s tempting to think she was right. Last year, Lipa’s “Future Nostalgia” – a second LP full of sticky vocal melodies, shimmering guitar licks and crazy-funky bass lines – topped the UK album chart and was certified gold in the US. Don’t Start Now, the project’s disco-throwback lead single, has been streamed nearly 2 billion times on Spotify and YouTube.