Dua Lipa
Ringmaster
BY PATTI SMITH
She moves with a lightness in a heavy world—bold, playful, and self-aware.
She is thoughtfully outspoken for the oppressed and displaced. She founded an influential editorial platform, Service95, to cover cultural topics and address humanitarian concerns. She believes in family, is grateful to her parents and supportive of her siblings.
She left home at 15 to propel her musical dreams into action. She is driven, independent, and possesses a desire for knowledge. She appeals to future artists to be mindful of the world around them.
She is herself, striving to redefine the pop-genre cosmos. She is Dua Lipa. Dua—Albanian for love.
She introduced her song “Houdini” with an image of a small key on the tip of her tongue. One can easily imagine her holding a ring of such keys, the master of her ever evolving kingdom.
Smith is a singer, songwriter, and author
James McBride
Defying gravity
BY ETHAN HAWKE
As a kid, you dream about meeting a great novelist. You imagine them as kind, noble, wise, omniscient. When I met James McBride, I felt like I’d had coffee with a hysterically funny 21st century Leo Tolstoy.
James has all the qualities one would expect. With The Color of Water, The Good Lord Bird, Kill ’Em and Leave, Deacon King Kong, and now The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, his excellence in the art of storytelling defies gravity. He writes about deep American wounds with love, rage, and a sense of wit that flies like a falcon in large leaping circles, riding the invisible winds of history.
In creating the limited I learned that James is also the kind of friend you dream of making. When things get rough, he never loses his sense of humor, his wisdom, and his powerful ability to communicate.
