Doja Cat
Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini (Zulu pronunciation: [ˈzandile ˈɮamini]; born October 21, 1995), known professionally as Doja Cat (/ˈdoʊdʒə/), is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she began making and releasing music on SoundCloud as a teenager. Her song "So High" caught the attention of Kemosabe and RCA Records, with whom she signed a recording contract prior to the release of her debut extended play, Purrr! in 2014.
Doja Cat
October 21, 1995
- Rapper
- singer
- songwriter
- record producer
- dancer
2012–present
- Dumisani Dlamini (father)
After a hiatus from releasing music and the uneventful rollout of her debut studio album, Amala (2018), Doja Cat earned viral success as an internet meme with her 2018 single "Mooo!", a novelty song in which she makes humorous claims about being a cow. Capitalizing on her growing popularity, she released her second studio album, Hot Pink, in the following year. The album later reached the top ten of the US Billboard 200 and spawned the single "Say So"; its remix featuring Nicki Minaj topped the Billboard Hot 100. Her third studio album, Planet Her (2021), spent four weeks at number two on the Billboard 200 and spawned the top ten singles "Kiss Me More" (featuring SZA), "Need to Know", and "Woman". Her fourth studio album, Scarlet (2023), adopted a hip hop-oriented sound and peaked within the top five of the Billboard 200, while its lead single "Paint the Town Red" became her most successful song to date, as it marked her first solo number-one on the Hot 100 among eight other countries.
Described by The Wall Street Journal as "a skilled technical rapper with a strong melodic sense and a bold visual presence",[1] Doja Cat is known for creating videos and performances which achieve virality on social media platforms such as TikTok. Well-versed in Internet culture, she is also famed for her absurdist online personality and stage presence.[2][3][4][5] She has received numerous accolades throughout her career, including one Grammy Award from sixteen nominations, five Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, and five MTV Video Music Awards. She is one of the biggest commercial artists of the 2020s according to Billboard,[6] and was included on the 100 most influential people in the world by Time in 2023.[7]
Early life
Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini[8] was born on October 21, 1995,[9] in the Tarzana neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.[10] Her mother, Deborah Sawyer, is an American graphic designer of Jewish heritage,[11][12] and her father, Dumisani Dlamini, is a South African performer of Zulu descent,[13] best known for starring as Crocodile in the original Broadway cast of the musical Sarafina! and the 1992 film adaptation.[14][15] The two had a brief relationship after meeting in New York City where Dumisani performed on Broadway, but he was too busy on tour to spend time with Amala and her brother.[12] He claims to have left his family in the US for South Africa out of homesickness, in the hopes that they would join him there,[16] yet Dlamini has suggested on multiple occasions that she is estranged from her father, stating that she "never met him."[17][18][19] Her father has denied these claims, claiming that he has a "healthy" relationship with his daughter and that her management team had tried to block all his attempts to contact her out of the fear that they "might lose her."[20][16]
Soon after her birth, Dlamini moved from Tarzana to Rye, New York, where she lived for five years with her maternal grandmother, an architect and painter.[12][21] At the age of eight, Dlamini moved with her mother and brother and returned to California to live at the Sai Anantam Ashram, a commune in Agoura Hills,[12] and practiced Hinduism for four years.[22][23] While living at the commune, Dlamini started wearing head-covering scarves and singing bhajans at temple,[10] yet disclosed how she felt like she could not "be a kid" during her time there.[24][22] Her family then moved to Oak Park,[12] where she started attending dance lessons and experienced a "sporty childhood", often skateboarding and visiting Malibu for surf camps.[25][26] Dlamini and her brother were also subjected to racial prejudice as some of the only mixed-race children in the area.[12]
As she grew older and moved away from the ashram, she attended breakdancing classes and joined a professional poplocking troupe, with whom she competed in dance battles throughout Los Angeles while still attending high school.[27] Her aunt, a vocal coach, had given Dlamini singing lessons to help her audition for Central Los Angeles Area New High School #9, a performing arts high school in Los Angeles.[26][12][28] She frequently skipped school to participate in online chatrooms.[29] After becoming discouraged about her education and career path, Dlamini claims that she realized in eleventh grade that "performing and music was all [she] ever cared about."[30] She eventually dropped out at age 16 while in her junior year,[31] attributing this decision to her struggles with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), saying that "it felt like I was stuck in one spot and everybody else was progressing constantly."[12]
Career
2012–2017: Career beginnings and record deal
Doja Cat has described life after dropping out of school as "messy", claiming that she slept on the floor and spent "all night and day" browsing the internet, looking for beats and instrumentals from YouTube which she downloaded and used to create her own music.[32][33] After becoming fascinated with internet culture and websites like eBaum's World and Myspace,[30] she taught herself to sing, rap and use GarageBand while at home without a job, frequently making music and uploading it to SoundCloud.[27][33][32] In late 2012, "So High" became the first permanent upload on her SoundCloud account.[32] Doja Cat began her career in the Los Angeles underground hip-hop scene, performing at parties and cyphers, and connecting with rappers such as Busdriver, Ill Camille and VerBS, the latter of whom claims to have helped hone her craft and find her first gig.[34] It was during this time that she met producer Jerry "Tizhimself" Powell, who had stumbled upon her SoundCloud account.[34] He introduced her to record producer Yeti Beats,[34] who invited her to record at his studio in the neighbourhood of Echo Park, which also served as "an oasis of sorts for Doja to escape from the turmoil at home".[12] Yeti Beats then connected her with Kemosabe Records, an imprint of RCA Records, where she signed under label executive Dr. Luke and his publishing company Prescription Songs at the age of 17.[10][21][35][36] This deal also came with a temporary artist management partnership with Roc Nation.[21]
In August 2014, Doja Cat released her debut EP, Purrr!, described as "spacey, eastern-influenced R&B" by The Fader.[37] "So High" was repackaged and released as her solo commercial debut single prior to the EP's release,[35] and was later featured on the Fox series Empire in the third episode of the show's first season.[38] In mid-2015, Doja Cat temporarily signed to OG Maco's label, OGG.[39] Following the signing, in late 2016, Maco and Doja Cat collaborated on the song "Monster", from Maco's 2017 mixtape, Children of The Rage.[40] She had started experiencing writer's block, which led her to decline American singer Billie Eilish's offer to feature on what would later become her popular 2017 single "Bellyache".[41] Doja Cat would stop releasing music for a while amid what she describes as a "creative limbo", which was influenced by her record labels not paying her much attention, as well as the effects of "finding herself" and smoking too much marijuana.[12]
Controversies
In 2018, Doja Cat sparked controversy on social media when her Twitter history revealed a continuous usage of the word "faggot".[232][233] In a tweet from 2015, she used the word to describe hip hop artists Tyler, the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt.[234] Doja Cat initially defended her past remarks but later issued a series of apologies for her words and has since deleted her tweets.[235] As a result of the controversy, Doja Cat was declared the Milkshake Duck of 2018 by NME.[232] In March 2020, she received backlash after saying on Instagram Live that COVID-19 was "only a flu" and that she was not scared of it.[236][237] Later that October, Doja Cat was criticized for participating in Kendall Jenner's Halloween and birthday celebrations during the COVID-19 pandemic.[238]
In May 2020, a 2015 song by Doja Cat titled "Dindu Nuffin" resurfaced.[239] "Dindu Nuffin" is an alt-right term used to ridicule African-American detainees protesting their innocence.[239][240] After apologizing, Doja Cat said that although the song was intended to flip the term's meaning, it was a "bad decision".[241] Doja Cat denied that the song was a response to the death of Sandra Bland, calling the allegation "one of the most awful rumors that I've ever encountered."[242][243][244] She took to Instagram to address accusations after footage began circulating of her on Tinychat in a chat room saying "nigger".[244][245] She apologized to those offended and said she should not have been on certain chat room sites, although she maintained that she had never been involved in any racist conversations.[244][241][246] Frequent users of the chat room later came forth and revealed that the nature of the chatroom was not specifically racist, and claimed that Doja Cat never said anything discriminatory in their conversations.[233]
Doja Cat's 2020 performance of "Say So" at the MTV Europe Music Awards ceremony was criticized when some viewers noted that the guitar solo in the performance was identical to the one in Plini's 2016 song "Handmade Cities".[247][248] The following month, Plini reported that he received an apologetic message from Doja Cat through social media.[249][250][251]
In March 2022, Doja Cat threatened to quit music due to the backlash from an incident that occurred during her time in Paraguay.[252] The artist was in Paraguay for the 2022 Asunciónico festival which was eventually canceled due to severe weather conditions.[252] After the cancellation, fans reportedly gathered outside the hotel she was residing at in order to get a glimpse of Doja Cat.[252] She did not come outside to meet with her fans and was consequently accused of being rude and apathetic. She did not post anything involving Paraguay on social media, leading fans to express frustration about her lack of acknowledgement.[252][253] She was also accused of being more enthusiastic with fans from other countries such as Brazil compared to her behavior with Paraguayan fans.[252] Because of the backlash the artist released a series of tweets where she claimed she was not sorry and she would quit the music industry, she then changed her Twitter username to "I Quit."[254] The artist did not quit music or Twitter and returned two days later with tweets expressing appreciation towards her fans.[254]
In July 2023, Doja Cat faced backlash for Threads comments suggesting that she does not appreciate her fans, for which she lost over 250,000 followers on Instagram.[255][256]
On October 6, 2023, Doja Cat posted a selfie of her wearing a t-shirt that features alt-right comedian Sam Hyde on Instagram.[257] The picture garnered widespread online backlash and she later deleted the photo, reposting a different selfie with Hyde's image edited out of the frame.[258]
Public image
Doja Cat has been noted for being versatile in her music. This includes her ability to sing, rap, and produce,[259][36] as well as perform and dance.[260] Often described as eccentric,[223][261][35] she is known for her absurdly humorous personality and posts on social media platforms.[2][5] Bryan Rolli of Forbes wrote that "Doja Cat's aloof, irreverent, chronically online persona masks a tireless work ethic; she sings better, raps faster and dances harder than many of her peers, all at once."[262]
In an article for Okayplayer, Robyn Mowatt noted that "as a singer, rapper, songwriter, and entertainer Doja has led her fans on a rambunctious journey equipped with snappy lyrics, live video streams, outlandish outfits, and memorable viral moments. It's not just the music that gets her fans riled up, it's also her live performances which typically are infused with a touch of eccentricity."[263]
As one of the biggest and best-performing commercial artists of the 2020s decade, writers at Billboard expressed that "it'd be tough to name three artists of any kind who feel more like the 2020s so far than Doja Cat."[6]
