MTV VMA Best Pop – Levitating (2021)

Lore & Background

By the time the September 2021 VMAs rolled around, "Levitating" had spent weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 and had become a cultural touchstone far beyond music. The track, co-written with Dan Rosenberg, Andrew Watt, and Cerkut, blended four-on-the-floor disco with a synth palette that felt simultaneously vintage and brand-new. Its music video, directed by Dave Meyers, dropped Dua into a surreal, candy-colored dreamscape that became instantly iconic and spawned countless fan edits, dance challenges, and meme formats across social platforms. The Best Pop category at the VMAs has historically been a barometer of which pop voice is defining the moment. Winning it in 2021 signaled to the industry and to fans that Dua's brand of exuberant, dance-first pop wasn't a passing trend but a sustained artistic direction. It also positioned her ahead of a new cycle of releases, giving *Future Nostalgia* a second wind and setting expectations for whatever she'd do next. In the broader arc of her career, the VMA win sat between the breakout confidence of *New Rules* and the full-throated reinvention of *Radical Optimism* (2023). It was the midpoint where the world stopped asking whether she could sustain a hit and started asking what she'd do with the platform she'd built.

In Their Own Story

The Prudential Center hums with a low, electric murmur. On the stage, a wall of pink and amber light pulses in time with a four-on-the-floor kick drum. Dua steps into the beam, disco-studded jacket catching every flicker, and the crowd's roar swells into a single sustained note. She mimes a line, tilts her head, and for three seconds the entire arena forgets to breathe. Then the chorus hits, the confetti cannons fire in a slow-motion rain of gold, and she's floating—literally, in the choreography, a few inches above the stage on a hydraulic lift—while the VMA trophy's silhouette glows behind her like a second sun. In the front row, a fan in a hand-painted "LEVITATE" sign loses her phone in the wave of the crowd. Nobody notices. Nobody needs to. The night belongs to the song.

Reader's Guide

POWER: Best Pop – MTV VMAs 2021 ("Levitating")

The specific achievement: Dua Lipa was named the winner of the Best Pop category at the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards for her single "Levitating," pulled from the 2020 album *Future Nostalgia*. Context: The ceremony took place in September 2021 at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. By that point, "Levitating" had already spent multiple weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and had become one of the most-streamed tracks of the year, anchoring a global dance revival. Career significance: The win marked a consolidation of her position as the leading voice of mainstream pop at that moment. It validated the artistic gamble of *Future Nostalgia*—an album built entirely on retro-disco and new-wave references in a market that often rewards novelty over nostalgia—and gave the record a second commercial surge. Reshaping perception: Before the VMA, critics and casual listeners sometimes filed Dua under "one-hit-phenomenon-who-had-a-second-album." After it, the narrative shifted to "artist with a coherent, evolving vision." The trophy became a visual shorthand in press coverage and fan discourse for the idea that joy, danceability, and craft could coexist at the very top of the genre. It also set the table for her 2023 album *Radical Optimism*, which leaned even further into maximalist, genre-blending production. In fan-encyclopedia terms, this is the power that unlocks the "Queen of Pop" title card: the moment the industry's most visible pop-specific award said, unambiguously, that she is the one.

Did You Know?

• "Levitating" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for multiple consecutive weeks, making it one of the longest-charting pop singles of 2021.
• The song's music video, directed by Dave Meyers, placed Dua in a surreal, candy-colored dreamscape and became a viral reference point across social media platforms.
• The 2021 VMA win for Best Pop came the same year she also received major nominations at the Grammy Awards, underscoring a cross-platform critical and commercial peak.
• "Levitating" was co-written with Dan Rosenberg, Andrew Watt, and Cerkut, blending their production sensibilities with Dua's signature melodic instincts.