Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini(Zulu pronunciation:[ˈzandileˈɮamini]; born October 21, 1995), known professionally asDoja Cat(/ˈdoʊdʒə/), is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Born and raised inLos Angeles,California, she began making and releasing music onSoundCloudas a teenager. Her song "So High" caught the attention ofKemosabeandRCA Records, with whom she signed arecording contractprior to the release of her debut extended play,Purrr!in 2014.
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 BillboardHot 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.
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 Zuludescent,[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 said that he 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 returned to California with her mother and brother 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]
Her first major commercial release in four years, Doja Cat released the song "Roll with Us" in February 2018 following a brief hiatus.[42] The following month, she released "Go to Town" as the lead single from her debut album, with an accompanying music video.[43] "Candy" was released as the album's second single that same month.[44] The track would later become a sleeper hit after a "dance challenge" on the video-sharing platform TikTok went viral in late 2019.[45] The single consequently charted in countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States, with the latter having the song peak at 86 on the Billboard Hot 100, making this her first solo entry on the chart.[46]
Doja Cat performing in October 2018 after the success of "Mooo!"
On March 30, 2018, Doja Cat's debut studio album Amala was released through RCA and Kemosabe Records, and included the three singles.[47] Its release was largely uneventful,[48][49] as it was ignored by critics and failed to chart in any market.[50][51] Doja Cat has since expressed strong disdain toward the record, claiming that it doesn't entirely represent her as an artist and that it isn't a "finished album" since she was constantly partying or high on marijuana during its recording.[52][53][54] She claims it was also rushed in order to meet deadlines from the record labels who paid it "almost no support".[55]
In August 2018, Doja Cat self-published the homemade music video for "Mooo!", a novelty song with absurdist lyrics in which she fantasizes about being a cow.[56] The video promptly garnered viral success as an internet meme, attaining over three million views in one week.[57][58][59] Due to popular demand following this viral success, the single version of "Mooo!" was released onto digital platforms later that month as the lead single from the deluxe edition of Amala.[60] This was followed by the release of the second single, "Tia Tamera" featuring Rico Nasty, and its accompanying music video in February 2019.[61] The full deluxe edition of Amala was released on March 1, 2019, and featured the bonus tracks "Mooo!", "Tia Tamera" and "Juicy".[51] The success of "Mooo!" is believed to have "irrefutably proved" to her record labels that Doja Cat was a marketable artist, which led them to start paying more attention to her.[12]
A remix version of Doja Cat's song "Juicy", from the deluxe version of Amala, added a verse from American rapper Tyga and was released alongside a music video in August 2019 as the lead single from her second studio album.[62] Following the release of the remix, the song debuted at number 83 on the Billboard Hot 100, marking Doja Cat's first entry on the chart, and ultimately peaked at number 41.[51] The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) would later award the song a platinum certification in the United States.[63] The song's success led to Amaladebuting for the first time on the Billboard 200 chart that same month.[51] In October 2019, Doja Cat released "Bottom Bitch", the second single from her second album.[64] This was followed by the release of the single "Rules" alongside the announcement of her second studio album Hot Pink.[65]Hot Pink was released on November 7, 2019, to generally favorable reviews. The album would eventually peak at number 9 on the Billboard 200.[66] Doja Cat was meant to feature on a track titled "Broward Coward" from an early version of the late XXXTentacion's fourth studio album, Bad Vibes Forever,[67][68] however the song was ultimately scrapped when the album tracklist was completely revised for its posthumous release in December 2019.[69] She later released the single "Boss Bitch" as part of the soundtrack for the 2020 film Birds of Prey.[70]
Doja Cat performing at the Hot Pink release party in 2019
In January 2020, "Say So" was sent to radio to become the fourth single off of her album Hot Pink.[71] The song was originally released alongside the album in November 2019, but gained wider popularity through the video-sharing platform TikTok.[72] She performed the song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in February 2020.[73] The next day, she released the music video for the song, directed by Hannah Lux Davis.[74] The solo version of "Say So" peaked at number five on the Hot 100, becoming her first top-ten single,[75] and was the most streamed song of 2020 by a female artist in the United States.[76] In May 2020, following the release of a remix of "Say So" featuring Nicki Minaj, the single topped the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the first number-one single for both artists and the first ever female rap collaboration to peak atop the chart.[77][78]
In March 2020, Doja Cat was set to embark on the Hot Pink Tour in support of the album, before it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[79] She was featured on a remix of the Weeknd's single "In Your Eyes" in May 2020,[80] as well as on the single "Shimmy" by rapper Lil Wayne from the deluxe version of his 2020 album Funeral.[81]In June, she was featured on the single "Pussy Talk" by the rap duo City Girls.[82] She released the music video for her single "Like That".[83] She also uploaded the demo song "Unisex Freestyle" to SoundCloud in late June 2020.[84] At the 20th BET Awards, Doja Cat was nominated for two awards, Best Female Hip Hop Artist and Video of the Year.[85] In August 2020, her song "Freak", which had been on SoundCloud since 2018, was officially released on digital platforms.[86]
According to sales in the United States,Billboardranked Doja Cat at number five on both the Top New Artists of 2020 and Top Female Artists of 2020 charts.[105][106]After her on-demand audio streams in the U.S. increased by 300% from 2019,Rolling Stoneranked her at number one on their list of the ten biggest breakthrough artists of 2020.[107]Forbesnamed Doja Cat "one of the top breakout stars of 2020" while including her on their annual30 Under 30list.[108]Doja Cat was the fourth most-Googledmusician of 2020 in the United States.[109]
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