It began with a tarot reading, a Mike Myers dance impression, and a sugar rush from a box of donuts. This episode unpacks how Dua Lipa’s “Levitating” was engineered from that chaotic studio session into one of the most resilient pop songs of the decade, surviving a pandemic, a cancellation, and two federal lawsuits.

We trace the “Future Nostalgia” blueprint, the rare Roland synth that became the song’s DNA, and the remote-recorded remixes with Madonna and Missy Elliott. Then we examine the DaBaby controversy, the seamless chart “hot swap” back to the solo version, and the copyright suits that were ultimately dismissed.

• The seven-year hunt for the vintage synth that shaped the track’s core sound
• How the Blessed Madonna Frankensteined remote vocal stems during lockdown
• The TikTok Levitating Challenge generating over 300 million views
• Winning Billboard’s 2021 year-end chart without ever hitting weekly number one
• Why a descending musical scale was ruled non-copyrightable in court