Dua Lipa Explains How Dance-Crying Is Bringing Her Joy in the Self-Isolation Era

Dua Lipa joined Jimmy Kimmel for a virtual edition of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Kimmel to explain what dance-crying is, why it's a key theme in both her albums, and how she coped with having Future Nostalgia leaked online.

The "Don't Start Now" singer released her second album, Future Nostalgia, a week earlier than its April 3 debut because it was leaked online. But, Dua accepts that some things just happen how they're ought to happen, and although she was "feeling a little conflicted" about the timing of the album in our current state of COVID-19, she then realised that it would probably bring people some joy.

"Someone described your music as dance-crying, have you ever heard what I'm taking about?", asks Jimmy. Dua laughs, "It's my forte. So, you're like dancing, and then you're crying". She explains that "It's playing on juxtapositions because you want to make music that you dance to and you have fun to, but when you listen to the lyrics there's a deeper meaning". A lot of the songs on her first album were a bit sad, but Dua still wanted to dance, and bring both of those emotions together — joy and sadness — which influenced her second album.

Dua wants Future Nostalgia to be "a celebration of vulnerability, that part of falling in love where you just never know. It's kind of that excitement. The unsurety. The what-ifs" and how that feeling comforts our current mood in isolation — whether that's "having your own dance party in the kitchen", or whatever you need to do to feel uplifted while we navigate this strange time.

Watch the full video above.