Dua Lipa: Dance The Night

Dua Lipa is a renowned singer/songwriter and a three-time Grammy winner. She was born on August 22, 1995, in London and she’s the daughter of Kosovar Albanians who were refugees escaping the war in the former Yugoslavia. She wrote her first song when she was four years old and was heavily influenced by her father who used to be in a rock band. In 2006, Dua and her family would go back to Kosovo when it was safe. Then at 15 years old, she convinced her parents to let her move back to London with a family friend as it would be beneficial to her education. However, she truly wanted to pursue singing and felt that she had the best chance to do so in London. Dua initially posted song covers on YouTube, hoping to be discovered and posted songs on SoundCloud. Her breakthrough would come with a commercial she sang on the show X-Factor, where she was offered a publishing deal. In 2017, her first album “Dua Lipa” came out and resulted in immense success for Dua. 

Mark Ronson is the music producer on the album for the movie “Barbie.” He is a seven-time Grammy-winning producer and is one of the most successful pop producers actively working. He worked closely with director Greta Gerwig to create a soundtrack for the movie that went along with her vision while also adding his own creativity. He produced 5 songs on the album and was responsible for reaching out to Dua Lipa and inviting her on the song. Greta provided Mark with minimal direction telling him she wanted a big disco number that was going to speak for Barbie’s best day ever. He initially sent a very raw track that would become “Dance the Night.” It was then Mark reached out to Dua via Instagram asking her to co-write the song with him. Dua Lipa was on tour at the time but quickly agreed and helped write the song while on break. 

The creation of the song is unique as the initial score Mark sent was the one used for rehearsals which meant there was not much leeway for the song to change. This also meant the song was written after the dance had been created in the movie. The challenge was to write lyrics that would match with Margot Robbie’s choreography which is unusual for a song but proved essential for the movie. The mechanisms or thought processes that get the creative person to the creative process started with the environment. Dua and Mark sat in the studio watching the choreography with Barbie dolls all around and post-it notes on the walls with thoughts of what the lyrics could be. Dua freestyled the lyrics while watching the choreography and she experienced insight or the ah-hah moment when Margot Robbie motions her hand towards her and Dua thought of the lyrics “come along for the ride.” Dua Lipa also added adlibs to the song that are intentionally whispered to represent Barbie’s inner monologue that was so unnatural for Barbie in the movie. Dua and Mark’s collaboration can be assessed through the Geneplore model as they each have their own strengths and built off one another to create this song. Mark, being the producer, created the beat and Dua came up with the lyrics, but they came together to analyze the song at each step. Their ability to collaborate with one another sprouted from their shared vision that Greta created. Dua Lipa had the creative freedom to freestyle the lyrics with the support of Mark fine tuning the song along with his support through visible affirmation when Dua began writing the song. 

“Dance the Night” would amass over 700 million streams and be nominated for two Grammys. This collaboration relates to my focus book Faith, Hope and Carnage by Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan as Nick Cave talks about his experiences collaborating with other people. Specifically, his band-mate Warren Ellis. Cave talks about how they went into the studio immediately after lockdown had finished and created an album’s worth of songs in just three days. According to Cave, they barely spoke and “sat down at [their] instruments and ten months of quarantine poured out of [them]” (Cave 145). Their style of collaboration differs from Mark and Dua’s as they are more adversarial collaborators than the Geneplore style. Ellis and Cave butt heads a lot during the creative process and are constantly going back and forth but are still able to create music and work together. Another connection to my focus book is when Cave talks about the feminization of music. He points out that as music develops it becomes “more nurturing, more vulnerable, more empathetic, generally speaking” (Cave 177). He does acknowledge the presence of this in the past, but it is much more pronounced now. Given the song produced by Mark and Dua was for the Barbie Movie, which was dedicated to empowering women, I think this is an interesting connection that Cave made. While I personally don’t agree that those characteristics are contributing to the feminization of music, I do find it to be an interesting observation made by Cave. Overall, I applaud Mark’s decision to include Dua Lipa on this album and song as she fits the vision of Barbie and coincided with Greta’s vision for the movie. 

Sources:

Aswad, Jem. “Variety.” Variety, 21 July 2023, variety.com/2023/music/news/barbie-producer-mark-ronson-dua-lipa-lizzo-soundtrack-1235674871.

Cave, Nick, and Seán O’Hagan. Faith, Hope and Carnage. Canongate Books, 2022.

“Dua Lipa.” Biography, 28 Dec. 2023, www.biography.com/musicians/dua-lipa.

Variety. “How Dua Lipa and Mark Ronson Created ‘Dance the Night’ for ‘Barbie’ | Behind the Song.” YouTube, 15 Dec. 2023, www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0TJtU2Y0s0.