Madison LaClair

See in Blue

As the daughter of a musician, Dua Lipa grew up surrounded by music, inspired by listening to Christina Aguilera, Stereophonics, and Robbie Williams as a teen. At 15, she started posting videos on YouTube, showcasing her incredibly powerful voice with covers of her favorite songs. But the transition from recording in her bedroom to recording in studios wasn’t always easy. "I’ve had ups and downs trying to find myself,” she said about the process of discovering her sound. The earnest, neon-tinged film chronicles Dua Lipa’s transformation, interspersed with footage of her expansive performances. In See In Blue, Dua Lipa shows off her true, new self — the self she’s been working to become. Intent on authenticity and influenced by the likes of J. Cole and Nelly Furtado, her dreams of making a pop album that defines her as an artist have come true. “Mwah!”

Stopped Making Excuses

What follows is a candid look at the Pittsburgh native’s past six years, starting with his ascent, when he was 19, as a popular but critically panned rapper. “I was an easy target. I admit that,” he says now. “It became one of those things where I got so much negativity that it almost became, like, ‘There’s no point to overly hate on this dude, let me look in and see what he’s doing.’ And when you look in, there’s some good music there.” Following his 2011 debut album, Billboard's first independently released No.1 in over a decade, Mac moved to Los Angeles, where it seemed to many he was thriving. That’s where Andrew Nosnitsky met him for Mac Miller's 2013 The FADER cover story, and where he played an endearing role in Earl Sweatshirt’s cover too.