She Left Her Family at 14 to Chase Music Abroad — Now She’s World-Famous with Guinness Records

This young girl moved from London to Kosovo with her parents when she was eleven.
At fourteen, she realized she couldn’t stay in Kosovo, so she left her family to pursue her dream.
She made her dream come true and even broke Guinness World Records.

This girl was born into a big Albanian family. Her parents moved to London from Albania three years before her birth. She spent most of her early years in London.

But when she turned 11, her parents decided they would move back to their home country, Kosovo. For the girl, it meant saying goodbye to her friends and starting over in a foreign country.

Although it was a big change, she was excited to move to Kosovo and meet her cousins. But by the time she was 14, she realized she couldn’t achieve her dreams there. She left to follow her passion and later broke Guinness World Records.

The girl’s mother was Bosnian, and her father was from Kosovo. During the 1990s, her parents faced war in their homeland. Her father’s father worked as a historian, heading the Kosovo Institute of History.

However, during the war, many historians were pressured to change Kosovo’s history to claim it was always part of Serbia. Her grandfather refused to rewrite history and lost his job.

In 1992, her parents fled Albania and moved to London as refugees. But their own parents stayed behind in Bosnia and Kosovo. Sadly, her father couldn’t say goodbye to his father, who died shortly after the war.

Despite these struggles, the couple welcomed their daughter in London in 1995. Her parents had to rebuild their lives. Her father wanted to become a dentist, and her mother a lawyer, but in London, they had to take jobs in cafés and bars while going back to school.

Growing up, the girl admired her parents’ hard work but felt embarrassed by her name, which means “love” in Albanian. She also felt different from others because of how her parents looked.

At school, boys would comment on how attractive her mother was, and girls said the same about her father, which made her uncomfortable. Despite this, she was determined and ambitious from a young age.

When she was 14, she sat her parents down and told them she wanted to go back to London. She dreamed of becoming a superstar and felt she couldn’t achieve that in Kosovo.

She planned to attend the Sylvia Young Theatre School on Saturdays and said she needed to study in English for a good university. Her parents agreed, and she returned to London.

Once there, she started recording demo tapes and uploading them to YouTube and Soundcloud. She also took her parents’ trust seriously, knowing she had to live up to their expectations.

Living with family friends, she stayed responsible and focused on her dream. She began reaching out to producers, and with the help of a lawyer, she found her manager, who helped launch her career.

Her love for performing began early, as she loved singing, dancing, and putting on shows for family and friends. She realized she had talent when a singing teacher in London moved her to an advanced class at just nine years old.

Her first concert in Kosovo was a hip-hop show, but she dreamed of seeing artists like Nelly Furtado and Pink perform there.

When she became successful, she created the Sunny Hill Festival to bring international artists to Kosovo. She hopes the festival will give her hometown something to celebrate for many years.

Her siblings are also interested in the arts. Her sister graduated from drama school, and her brother started producing music as a teenager.

The girl deeply admires her parents. She said their sacrifices and hard work shaped her perspective and made her appreciate how lucky she was to return to London for her career.

Her parents’ love story also influenced her. They married young, and she once felt pressure to find a partner. But she eventually realized it’s okay to focus on yourself before committing to a relationship.

The girl is Dua Lipa, the pop star who didn’t like her unique name as a child. Despite her struggles, she became a global sensation.

In March last year, her song “Levitating” became the longest-charting song on the Billboard Hot 100. Her live-streamed concert in 2020 broke the Guinness World Record for most tickets sold for a live-streamed show by a solo female artist.

In 2021, she became Spotify’s most-listened-to female artist, earning her another Guinness World Record. Although she has won three Grammys and been nominated for 10, she stays humble.

Her career isn’t the only thing going well. She recently gained Albanian citizenship, smiling proudly as she signed the papers.