Doja Cat vs The World

We all know who Doja Cat is. A triple threat who built her up from Soundcloud. Releasing bops that resulted in her signing with RCA Records. Alternative RNB is what Amala dabbled in, leaving a mark in our minds. She is loved for not being the conventional singer, whilst pushing a new sound thats transparent to who she is. Listeners resonate with authenticity.. but to what extent?

From 2018 onwards, Doja fell into a handful of concerning controversies ranging from hanging out in chatrooms with right-winged opinionators, to racist comments, to calling out her fans.. but why is it that she still rose to fame? I believe the reason is that Doja showed us who Amala was from the beginning. An experimental artist with a weird, quirky personality who loves to troll her fans. She has built a community of fans who can relate to Doja to the most human level. They will understand how she can slip into the wrong places or say the wrong things. They don’t see her as this cookie-cutter idol celebrity, which makes her controversies minimal to surprise. Doja continues to establish her presence in Hip Hop, Pop and RnB, gaining momentum, captivating the mainstream audience with songs like ‘Say So’. Heading mainstream, especially as a black alternative experimental artist, always leads to being categorised. Being pushed into a box that mostly benefits her label for business rather than the benefit to her artistry. She expresses and liberates herself through her music in ways that pushes social boundaries, especially for mainstream artists. Sharing parts of her creativity through Instagram lives, bonded her with her audience. All until she took a moment to shave her hair and her eyebrows. She then created beautiful designs on her eyebrows, feeling free like a blank canvas, but her audience and critics saw otherwise.

DEMONIC! TWISTED! WEIRD! SAD! CHANGED! was the minimum description. Compared with the tragic situation of Britany Spears, the media spun their own narrative and created their own web of realities for Doja. Instead of Doja rebutting against the comments like she has before, Doja plays into it. In an interview, Doja created and featured in herself, she talks about how Amala would feel about Doja Cat. She says that she used to write from a perspective that she thought the media would eat up. But now she is in another vein of life, where she can express herself. Doja smartly played as another character from the concept of her album, whom which at this segment of Doja’s speech, she seemed bored, not listening and even used the time to have glam touch ups. This clearly simulates the point that Doja is making. No one cares about the authentic, creative, experimental Doja, they always want the hit-making pop star Doja. Continuing down the stems of public opinions, Doja dove into the era of her fourth studio album, ‘Scarlet’. She stuns the world with her unforgettable but creative look for the Schiaparelli Couture show that was hosted in Paris, covered in red crystals, totalling to 30,000 all in 4 hours and 58 minutes of work. ‘Doja’s Inferno’ made headlines as devilish as the inspiration were of 'Dante’s ‘9 circles of hell’, which is pretty on theme for this era of hate and narrative. I think that this look was the most forward creative, Doja has presented. Remember when I said that Doja loves to troll with her fans? Well she loves to do it more with her haters! Two days later, she attends another show in Paris where her face was the centre of attention. She had eyelashes on her eyebrows, top of her lip and one on her chin. She then explains that she worked with a talented designer to achieve that never-done-before look and she was met with criticism about not wearing eyelashes. Sarcastically stating “I just wanna make people happy”.

So, this brings me onto her ‘Scarlet’ era. Starting off very strong, we have the release of ‘Paint The Town Red’. Vivid imagery detailing demons, the master of death and everything that is symbolic inbetween. However, her lyrics were quite the opposite to the video. Her main chorus line is “I don’t care I’ll paint the town red”, “oo she a devil, a bad lil bih she a rebel”. The first verse said “All my happiness is all of your misery”, “I look better with no hair”, “Ain’t no sign I can’t smoke here”. She is overly expressing that she is the most happy with her change, feeling free and liberated. But because that’s not how the world saw and liked her, they took it out on her. She loves her shaved look, whereas fans and critics preferred her in her past eras. That’s why they say “I miss the old Doja”.

I love how Doja paints pictures with her lyrics, for example: ‘There is no sign that she can’t smoke here’ = There are no rules in how she should dress or edit herself, especially now that she has worked to the top…

Hidden in between her disses, are really deep messages: “Money really all we fiendin’ for” which shows the industry for what it really is. We would love a person for breaking barriers that is for everyone else but when they go above and beyond and become that blank canvas to express themselves in multiple ways, it’s a problem. It’s a problem for the audience as they only liked Doja when she was singing pop, who they would call ‘normal’ but they couldn’t stand when Doja was really trying to be different than just the conventional artist. She had more to believe in, more to create and break.

This is where Doja Cat stands out to me more than the conventional artists. Artists needs to keep their fans interested and invested so that their label can earn money back from what they have given them as a budget in their contract. If their fanbase has cracks in it and is no longer siding with the artist, their label won’t be happy. This is where most artists retract themselves, whether it is something they have said or an action they’ve done. They would usually put out a statement and go back into the bubble where they were accepted before hand. That is puppetry, that is not authenticity. Instead Doja played into their criticism and their narratives. So as well as denying their made-up beliefs, she took them and went above and beyond with them. She used shock-factor, keeping the audience upset as she is living as the true artist she wants to be. She mocks them whilst most importantly, keeping the label happy. She fooled yall whilst telling yall..that she was fooling yall!!!

This reminds me of the Bangerz era, where Miley turned a 360 to break out of the stigma of being a disney character. She was heavily criticised, specifically by parents in which they boycotted her so that their children did not engage. It must’ve been brutal for Miley, but it died out eventually and she went onto being her most authentic self in her artistry. Now when it comes to Doja, she is a black woman. I know you must be thinking, it isn’t always about race…. it is. it’s always about race when it always has been about race. As a black woman we are taught to work hard but not hard enough where we would go far. Doja has worked her way up but being a black woman, you are automatically squeezed into a box. Whether that’s RnB or Pop they want you in one box. They don’t like when you are doing too much; they say that you have to be grateful for being up where you are even though you’d be controlled and monitored. We talk about artists having their rebellion era’s and blush over how it was so cool and praising their naughtiness but when it comes to Doja experimenting like the artist she always was since soundcloud, cosplaying as their own narratives, they berate her worse.

She has never once mentioned being a Satanist. This really shows how society {and the black society} outcast black women for being alternative.

Doja continues down the album about the rumours, flexing that whilst people are studying whether or not shes demonic, she is “onto bigger things” like buying a limousine.

A lot of the people who were critical of her art, says that since her pop releases Doja now raps- Doja responds with: “lots of ppl that were sleeping say I rap now” which simply shows that Doja is quite literally telling critics that she is the same person, her artistry is no different to what it was before, she is just growing and experimenting with her sound and looks.

“i can’t believe how bold, you think the line’s that thin” .. it is almost a rite of passage that every person who is at their peak, would be subjected to rumours and allegations of selling their soul. Art is always praised but when the art starts to question social norms or bring a new perspective, it is discriminated. “A hunnid billies, I’m the GOAT no eilish”.

“they gon buy it, they gon pirate, they gon play it, they consume it, if you’re scooting lmk cos that’s a comment , that’s a view, and that’s a rating, that’s some hating, that’s some engagement i could use. and i could teach yall how to do this but id much rather be cruising” …need i say more?

One of her singles, ‘Attention’, addresses the rumours in a more serious tone, rapping in a 90’s coded street music video with sensual visuals throughout the hook. My highlighted lyrics are “look at me, look at me, i’m naked. Vulnerability earned me a lot of bacon” particularly at the part where the instrumental drops out and leaves her words “i’m naked” hanging, catching the audiences attention. The same attention that would make heads turn rapidly to her if she was barely dressed rather than seeing an artist who are standing in front of you with their heart in their hand. But Doja proves that she is in fact in control of herself and her art. Sure she was and still is sexualised, but she took that power back and used it within her art as liberation.

“yall follow me but you don’t really care about the music” again, that goes to the haters who jumped on the bandwagon and never listened to her music and don’t know what she’s about, just hopping onto the next trending thing or person.

This raises the question.. how far are artists allowed to go with their arts? how can society as a whole move forward if every single social norm or conventional boundary that is tested gets put under scrutiny? why is it that an artist who wants to stay real and experiment freely (especially with financial freedom) doesn’t have the backing of public opinion but if they were to submit to selling their souls they become industry plants and also lose the respect of public opinion ?

Will artists truly ever have full control of themselves and their artistry? Views and engagement is what makes the industry thrive.

I understand questions and theories and generally being curious but that leaves no excuse to bully, mock, degrade a person when they bring something fresh to the table.

#respect the artists and respect the art. let me know down in the comments your answers to those questions! there is definitely a fine grey line that breakthrough artists fall in. Stay shining and stay blessed, this is Inbetweentheirlines, we will see you next time!🤍