Soundtracking Solitude

WENDYONG

PRESIDENT TaP Music

MOST ARTISTS hastened to postpone their big album releases when Covid-19 struck, fearing they’d risk losing chunks of their audience as global attention focused elsewhere. But Dua Lipa forged on. As a result, her album Future Nostalgia, released in late March, became known as a beacon of the quarantine era — its bubbly tracks giving music fans some much-needed cheer. “How can we pause right now?” Wendy Ong, who manages Dua, as well as Lana Del Rey and Ellie Goulding, recalls thinking. “There’s so much happening in the world.” Though her team had many conversations about moving the release, Ong decided the singer should go against the grain and “pivot very quickly” — and Dua also liked the idea of Future Nostalgia becoming “the album of quarantine.” So Ong had the artist bombard social media with throwback posts on the theme of nostalgia and invite TikTok users to help choreograph her music video for the new single “Levitating.” Dua also co-hosted a virtual prom on iHeartRadio stations and performed from home on James Corden’s and Jimmy Fallon’s late-night shows. “I’m not one of the most confident people in the world, but I am really good with just looking around, assessing the environment,” Ong says of her approach to leadership. Years ago, moving from Singapore to New York, Ong got her first job in the U.S. music industry by knocking on doors until she found herself in a room with Clive Davis. “Two weeks after that, I was in Paris with Diddy,” she says. “I had no idea what was going on, but it’s like what they say, right? If you act like you know what’s going on, sooner or later it all starts to make sense and sink in.” E.M.