It’s been an incredible year for Dua Lipa, with her Future Nostalgia album topping charts around the world, six Grammy nominations and her Studio 2054 livestream breaking viewing records for the format.
And now she’s picked up the ultimate accolade: Music Week’s Artist Of The Year 2020.
Lipa picked up the gong – won last year by Lewis Capaldi – in recognition of a remarkable year in which Future Nostalgia spent four weeks at No.1 in the UK and sold 246,068 copies, according to the Official Charts Company, despite being released just as the world went into lockdown.
The full story of Lipa’s remarkable campaign is told by her and her team in the new, review of the year special edition of Music Week, available now.
“It’s surreal. It’s crazy,” Dua Lipa told Music Week about her win. “It’s been such a mad year to be honest and to even have put out a record during this confusing, uncertain time, has been interesting; getting used to this new normal and getting into the swing of things. But I’m so grateful, it’s all I could ever ask for to have my music be heard and for people to have responded and reacted to it the way that they have, and to be lucky enough to receive this accolade, it’s really cool.”
Dua Lipa’s managers, Ben Mawson and Ed Millett, who also publish the singer via a Tap Publishing JV with UMPG, were themselves voted Managers Of The Year at the 2020 Music Week Awards. And the Tap co-founders were delighted for their superstar artist to join the ranks of Music Week champions.
“It’s wonderful news,” said Mawson. “And much deserved. It’s been a busy year in strange circumstances and she’s achieved a lot.”
To be lucky enough to receive this accolade is really cool
Dua Lipa
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” added Millett. “She’s always been a grafter and, just as we entered this year, there was so much internal excitement about getting this music out because, as the songs came in, they were everything and more that we hoped they would be. It’s been brilliant to watch how she’s really driven the whole thing creatively, punched through all the trials and tribulations and come up with really great creative ways of getting this music out there. Artist Of The Year is incredibly well-deserved.”
At Lipa’s record label, Warner Records, president Phil Christie was thrilled with the award, won in recent years by the likes of George Ezra, Ed Sheeran and Coldplay.
“This was a really nice thing to get,” he said. “I’m really pleased for Dua and really grateful that you’ve anointed her Artist Of The Year. It’s been a brilliant year and this and the Grammy nominations are the cherry on the cake.”
“It’s what we’ve been dreaming about since the end of the last record and we realised that we had an opportunity to make her the most significant artist of the year,” added Warner Records head of A&R Joe Kentish. “She made an album that was unashamed in its ambition. You’ve got to be brave to be a young artist and it’s exactly the type of accolade that she and the campaign have been going for.”
* For the full exclusive interview with Lipa and her team, see the special, review of the year edition of Music Week, available now. To order your copy of this very special issue, please email musicweek@abacusemedia.com. To subscribe to Music Week and never miss a vital music biz story, click here.
FOLLOW 
