DUA LIPA IS GIVING US EVERYTHING

After a whirlwind couple of years, the wildly ambitious pop star is embracing freedom and fun both in her life and on her upcoming album. As she kicks off a new era, she lets us into her dreams, her anxieties, and what she wants to stand for

- BRITTANY SPANOS

"I AM LITERALLY GETTING THROWN INTO LIFE RIGHT NOW."

Dua Lipa is thinking about her Saturn return as she says this. At 28, she's deep in it now, but the astrology-loving star had been anticipating the foreboding planetary event for a while. It's a cosmic coming of age, usually when people are at the cusp of 30, marked by tons of transitions and transformations and upheaval. Lipa - who's about to start an entirely new chapter in her career is feeling it all.

"It drags you by your feet," Lipa says in her north London lilt, relishing the chaos a bit. "I thought 28 was going to be so cute."

We're seated on the now-empty patio at Gjelina, a popular restaurant on Abbot Kinney Boulevard, a trendy street in LA's Venice Beach. (She sheepishly admits that her love for the show Californication made her want to see this street before she ever visited Los Angeles.) Lipa pulled up to lunch alone, weaving through once-packed tables in her tweed car coat, T-shirt, jeans and sunglasses. Her hair, dyed a deep, mulled-wine red, makes her stick out immediately - which might be why the owner, who knows her dad and is also of Albanian descent, sends over a free dessert. "Albanians everywhere," she says with a shrug.

She's slightly jet-lagged, having landed from London a few days earlier. Two days before her flight, she released her new single, 'Houdini', a neo-psychedelic dance-floor rager. The next morning, Grammy nominations were announced, and she found out her Barbie hit, 'Dance the Night', was up for two awards, including Song of the Year. "I didn't even know they were coming out that day!" she says. She celebrated by going to her friend's DJ set, and admits she was kind of hungover for her flight.