Grammy Award-winning singer Dua Lipa put on a show-stopping performance in a black gown as she sang a stripped-down rendition of her track, Boys Will Be Boys.
As she opened the virtual edition of Billboard Women in Music on Thursday, the singer impressed viewers with her vocals as she was accompanied by a string quartet.
Standing on a nearly empty stage, she swayed around with a microphone and belted out a powerful chorus, which tackled Sєxual harᴀssment and women’s experiences with toxic male behavior.
‘Boys will be, boys will be boys/ But girls will be women,’ she crooned as the silhouettes of her orchestra occasionally flashed on the screen.
The British dance-pop star, whose sophomore album Future Nostalgia is nominated for the 2021 Grammy Awards’ coveted Album Of The Year prize, later took home the show’s Powerhouse Award.
‘The award, given to an an act whose music dominated streaming, sales and radio,’ according to Billboard, was presented by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
‘What this year has made clear, more than anything else, is that none of us can go back to business as usual,’ the politician said in his introduction.
He continued by noting that the Powerhouse Award recipent has ‘said loudly and clearly with her actions that now is the time to fight for a better future for all.’
‘She is fighting for young people, women, refugees, the LGBT community [and] she is using her platform to bring people into the democratic process. She is raising her voice to demand real change,’ Sanders said of Lipa.
Then, he nodded to the performer’s hit New Rules, as he revealed he recently spoke with her and remarked that she ‘knows the rules have to change.’
Upon accepting her trophy, she described Sanders as her ‘personal hero’ and said she was thrilled to be recognized for standing in solidarity with her ‘fellow female artists and women all over the world.’
‘We’ve still got so far to go for real equality,’ she said, after pointing out the mᴀssive gender and race gap among the producers of Billboard H๏τ 100’s songs.
She concluded: ‘Let’s keep celebrating the women, and keep encouraging all the young girls out there to be the powerhouses of the future.’
Lipa is an outspoken feminist, denounced Sєxism within the music industry, and frequently advocates for the LGBTQ community.
‘It’s important to me to show unity between women,’ she told. ‘We should be seeing more girls, more diversity, more togetherness. For so long, people have pitted women being against each other. That’s not how it should be.’ ‘
