Doja Cat harnessed viral moments to reach no. 1 on Billboard, but her online past has also resulted in controversial moments for the 'Say So' singer
Photo by: Andrew Lipovsky/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Doja Cat has been an experimental artist to watch for a few years now, but with her Billboard no. 1 "Say So" (featuring Nicki Minaj), she's finally reached the mainstream.
A lot of her success is due to a viral hit on YouTube, "Moo!," which is a novelty song about being a cow – she's also evolved as a more serious artist with the albums "Amala" and "Hot Pink."
Doja Cat's rise has also largely been propped up by TikTok, where one of the most popular, pervasive dances of all time is set to "Say So" – and the choreographer even made a cameo in the music video.
While Doja Cat has successfully capitalized off viral moments and built a large fanbase, her online past has also resulted in controversies over homophobic slurs and her participation in chat rooms that some say are racist.
Even if you're not a TikTok user, you've probably heard the catchy, R&B-influenced track "Say So." Not unlike "Old Town Road," the hit Doja Cat song got its fame after it went insanely viral on the short-form video app. On May 11, 2020, the song's remix with Nicki Minaj peaked at no. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Songs chart, making it the first no. 1 hit for both artists.
It makes sense that the artist's career would get a mainstream boost from a TikTok dance. Everything about Doja Cat is primed for the internet, from her e-girl aesthetics to the viral YouTube video "Mooo!" that propelled her from a small LA-based artist into the mainstream.
Here's how Doja Cat harnessed viral moments and genre-bending artistry to become one of the most popular people in music right now, and here are why some parts of her online past are controversial.
The woman behind Doja Cat is 24-year-old Amalaratna "Amala" Zandile Dlamini, and she was born and raised in LA.
Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Her father, Dumisani Dlamini, is a South African actor and producer, while her mother Deborah Elizabeth Sawyer is a Jewish-American painter.
She picked the stage name Doja Cat because of her affinity for marijuana and "weed culture," as well as her love for cats.
Photo by Keipher McKennie/WireImage
When she made her album "Amala," Doja Cat told the Los Angeles Times that she was "super high all the time," but in recent years she says not smoking has improved her songwriting.
Doja Cat started releasing SoundCloud tracks when she was a teenager, like her song "So High," which was featured on the TV series "Empire."
Gonzales Photo/Ewa Godd/PYMCA/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
When Doja Cat released the music video for "So High" a year later, Vibe described her as an "18-year-old psychedelic prodigy."
She signed with RCA Records and Kemosabe Records in 2014, and released her first EP, called "Purrr!"
Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Spotify
Doja Cat's genre-bending style incorporates elements of R&B, hip hop, pop, rap, and psychedelic music. She has cited influences ranging from Gwen Stefani and Christina Aguilera to Nicki Minaj, Busta Rhymes, and Drake.
Doja Cat first shot to viral superstardom with a track she made in one day, with the intention of it becoming a meme, called "Mooo!"
While wearing a sexy cow-print costume, she danced in front of absurdist graphics, stuck McDonald's french fries up her nose, and sang lyrics like "B----, I'm a cow."
"Mooo!" became a viral YouTube hit, has more than 67 million views, and helped promote her first studio album, "Amala."
Popular artists like Chance the Rapper, Katy Perry, and Chris Brown acknowledged and praised "Mooo!," and Doja Cat later released it as a standalone single. Throughout her career, Doja Cat has used livestreaming tools like Instagram Live to connect with her fanbase, and many of the "Mooo!" lyrics stemmed from a creative session on Live.
"Mooo!" propelled Doja Cat into the spotlight, but she also had to deal with a controversy soon after when old, homophobic remarks surfaced.
Photo by Josh Brasted/FilmMagic
Old tweets showed her using gay slurs to describe artists like Tyler the Creator. Doja Cat eventually apologized, but she first tried to defend herself with a tweet saying "I've said f----- roughly like 15 thousand times in my life [...] I don't think I hate gay people. Gay is okay" – which resulted in even more backlash.
The year after "Mooo!" debuted, Doja Cat released "Tia Tamera" featuring another artist on the rise, Rico Nasty.
"Tia Tamera" was the lead single to the deluxe edition of "Amala," and the growing success of both artists at around the same time makes it a standout Doja Cat track.
She also released her first song to chart in the Billboard 200, "Juicy," featuring Tyga.
Kemosabe Records/RCA Records
"Juicy" debuted at 83 and peaked at 41, making it Doja Cat's most successful song at that point.
She also had a major bop with her track "Boss B*tch," which was part of the "Birds of Prey" soundtrack.
Screenshot YouTube/Atlantic Records
"Boss B*tch" is Doja Cat's latest single, and it plays in a pivotal scene in the Harley Quinn movie.
But Doja Cat's most successful song is "Say So," and its viral popularity started with a dance on the app TikTok.
"@yodelinghaley" came up with a simple dance to the chorus of "Say So" that blasted into the TikTok hall of fame, becoming one of the most popular dances on the app ever. The relatively simple movements compared to dances like the "Renegade" have contributed to its popularity.
@yodelinghaley HERE IT IS!! the full say so dance🥺🥰
♬ say so by doja cat - yodelinghaley
Almost every major TikToker has done the "Say So" dance, and the song itself blew up as a result.
Screenshot YouTube/Tik Tok 2020
Doja Cat has seen success on TikTok with other tracks, too. Her song "Candy" was released in 2016, on her "Purrr!" EP, but it gained enough TikTok fame in 2019 that it charted at number 86 on the Billboard 200 in December.
"Say So" is Doja Cat's most popular track to date, and on May 11, 2020, the remix with Nicki Minaj became the no. 1 song on the US Billboard singles chart.
"Say So" was produced by Dr. Luke, which makes the track's popularity somewhat controversial, since the producer has been accused of sexual assault and abuse by the singer Kesha. He used a pseudonym, "Tyson Trax," for "Say So," and it's his first top 20 hit in half a decade.
But "Say So" reached the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, and when Doja Cat released a remix with Nicki Minaj, the song reached the no. 1 spot. On May 11, 2020, both Doja Cat and Minaj had a song of theirs peak at no. 1 for the first time. For Minaj, it ended the longest-running career wait for a no. 1 hit, as the rapper has had 109 songs enter the chart.
Doja Cat recognized just why "Say So" became so popular in the first place, and she performs the TikTok choreography in the official music video.
Haley Sharpe, the TikToker behind the viral dance, also makes a cameo in the "Say So" video.
@yodelinghaley guys! guess where you’ll be seeing me tomorrow! tune in to @dojacat’s youtube channel at 10am ET tomorrow to watch the premiere of say so! 🥰
♬ Say So - Doja Cat
The success of "Say So" was meant to continue over into the Hot Pink tour, for Doja Cat's latest album, but the tour was postponed due to the coronavirus.
Scott Dudelson/Getty Images
Doja Cat is also set to perform at Coachella, which was also postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. Coachella is still happening, but it won't take place until October.
Outside of music, Doja Cat is also known for her unique, e-girl inspired fashion.
With more than 4.1 million Instagram followers, she also has a presence as an influencer. The streaming platform Caffeine has an exclusive contract with Doja Cat, and she livestreams herself playing "The Sims" video game franchise.
Her provocative, bubblegum aesthetic hasn't pigeonholed her, and Doja Cat's fanbase has only continued to grow with experimental tracks like "Bottom B----," which samples Blink-182.
Photo by Steven Ferdman/Getty Images for TIDAL
The song, in which Doja Cat talks about a female partner and compares herself to a pimp, samples "What's My Age Again?"
"I can sample Blink-182 but put an African vocal sample in there," she told the LA Times. "The whole song feels like you're in a tropical forest."
As her star continues to rise, Doja Cat wants to be taken seriously – and is – but she's still promoting goofy tracks and fun aesthetics.
Photo by Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images
"That's a small portion of my career, taking a moment to do something stupid," she told the LA Times. "I have a song called 'Waffles Are Better Than Pancakes.' If I can't be goofy, I'll go insane. I can talk about waffles and how much I hate spiders all day, but I can't sit and write about heartfelt [stuff] unless I have the emotional space to do it."
Doja Cat was one of the artists Lana Del Rey name-dropped in her controversial rant about feminism.
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images
After Doja Cat and Minaj charted at no. 1 with the "Say So" remix, Grammy Awards nominee Lana Del Rey included them in her controversial call-out post about feminism and female chart toppers.
"Now that Doja Cat, Ariana, Camila, Cardi B, Kehlani and Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé have had number ones with songs about being sexy, wearing no clothes, f---ing, cheating etc – can I please go back to singing about being embodied, feeling beautiful by being in love even if the relationship is not perfect, or dancing for money – or whatever I want –without being crucified or saying that I'm glamorizing abuse??????" Del Rey wrote on Instagram.
Doja Cat briefly commented and then deleted "Gang sunk that dunker," which Urban Dictionary translated to "You tried it...and you failed," after Del Rey was quickly greeted with derision for post.
Doja Cat's cancellation became a trending topic after her use of chat rooms was scrutinized, along with an old song that has racist undertones.
Doja Cat/Instagram
Soon after being called out by Lana Del Rey, Doja Cat had another scandal of her own. Videos surfaced that appear to show her partaking in what were characterized as "racist chat rooms" with members that promoted alt-right sentiments. The hashtag "#dojaisoverparty" trended on Twitter. In addition to criticism that Doja Cat laughed along with racist jokes in the chat rooms, an old song of hers called "Dindu Nuffin" also resurfaced.
Not only is the phrase "Dindu Nuffin" popular among obscure racist forum posters to describe black victims of police bruality, but the song was released shortly after the 2015 death of Sandra Bland, a black woman who died in police custody after being pulled over for not using her turn signal.
Over the course of about 48 hours, the discourse changed, however, and the hashtags "WeAreSorryDoja" and "dojacatisNOToverparty" trended. Doja Cat later apologized on Instagram Live and in a statement and said she never participated in racist conversations, is proud of her black South African heritage, and meant to flip the meaning of the phrase "Dindu Nuffin" in her song.
Read the original article on Insider
