Six Years Zephyring, Dua’s SNL Spark Still Feels Like Pure Pop Escapism
Friday Escapism: six years zephyring, Dua Lipa’s “Levitating” still sounds exactly like the kind of pop getaway Future Nostalgia promised. The DaBaby-assisted single arrived on October 1, 2020, pushing one of the album’s brightest tracks into full chart-smasher territory.
“Levitating” began life on Dua’s second studio album, Future Nostalgia, before its single era expanded through multiple remixes. The version with DaBaby became the album’s fifth official single, pairing Dua’s disco-pop glide with a guest verse while keeping that instantly weightless hook right at the center.
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Dua Lipa — Levitating
Six years later, one of Future Nostalgia’s defining singles still floats: a pop smash, a giant chart run and one of Dua Lipa’s signature eras.
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The song never actually reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 — it peaked at No. 2 — yet it still finished as Billboard’s No. 1 Hot 100 song of 2021. That kind of staying power became part of its legend: “Levitating” spent 77 weeks on the chart and turned a near-miss at the weekly summit into something much bigger over time.
By 2025, Billboard had pushed the legacy even further, ranking “Levitating” at No. 9 among the biggest Hot 100 songs of the first 25 years of the 21st century — the highest placement by a female lead artist on that list. Not bad for a song that never needed the weekly No. 1 crown to become one of the era’s defining pop records.
And then there was Saturday Night Live. Dua served as musical guest on the December 19, 2020 episode hosted by Kristen Wiig, performing both “Don’t Start Now” and “Levitating.” So, a tiny timeline correction from the original memory lane: this performance was late 2020, not 2021 — right as the single was beginning the enormous chart life that followed.
What still works is the same thing that worked then: “Levitating” doesn’t overcomplicate its mission. It shimmers, it struts, it makes room for movement, and it turns a few minutes of dance-pop into a very efficient escape route. Friday Escapism indeed.
Dua Lipa Performs “Levitating” on Saturday Night Live in 2020
Dua Lipa performed “Levitating” as musical guest on the December 19, 2020 episode of Saturday Night Live, hosted by Kristen Wiig.
Source: Dua Lipa / Warner Records; Billboard; Saturday Night Live. Video: INYIM Media / Instagram.
