1995-present
Doja Cat News: Singer Headlines 2024 Coachella Music Festival
Doja Cat closed out weekend one of the annual Coachella music festival in southern California on April 14 with guest artists 21 Savage, A$AP Rocky, and Teezo Touchdown. The 28-year-old’s setlist was dominated by songs from her newest album Scarlet, though she and Teezo performed their collaboration “Masc,” which released earlier this month as part of a deluxe edition of Scarlet. Doja Cat sang “n.h.i.e.” with 21 Savage and “URRRGE!!!!!!!!!!” with A$AP Rocky; changed outfits several times; and was accompanied by, at various times, a skeleton dinosaur, backup dancers dressed like yetis, and a mud wrestling ring. Noticeably absent from her set were two of her biggest pop hits, “Say So” and “Kiss Me More.”
The “Paint The Town Red” singer is one of this year’s headliners, alongside Lana Del Rey and Tyler, The Creator, and performs again on April 21. Doja Cat previously performed at Coachella in 2022.—Biography.com Editors
Who Is Doja Cat?
Doja Cat is a Grammy-winning rapper and pop singer known for the songs “Say So,” “Paint The Town Red,” and “Kiss Me More” featuring SZA. Raised in California and New York, Doja Cat, whose real name is Amala Dlamini, began making music as a teenager that she released on SoundCloud. Her inventive sound caught the attention of producer Dr. Luke, who signed the then-17-year-old to his record label in 2013. She released her first EP, Purrr!, in 2014, and her first album, Amala, in March 2018. Doja Cat’s music video and song “Mooo!” went viral in August 2018, spurring her popularity. She has released three additional albums since—Hot Pink in 2019, Planet Her in 2021, and Scarlet in 2023—and won a Grammy Award in 2022 for the song “Kiss Me More.”
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini
BORN: October 21, 1995
BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, California
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Libra
Real Name, Parents, and Brother
Doja Cat, whose real name is Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini, was born on October 21, 1995. Her professional name came from a strain of marijuana (Doja) and her love of cats (she has two of them, Alex and Ray).
Doja Cat and her older brother, Raman, were raised by their mother, Deborah Sawyer, and their grandmother. Sawyer was a painter and clothing designer. Doja Cat’s father, Dumisani Dlamini, a South African actor and dancer, wasn’t involved much in her upbringing. The two have never met in person but have corresponded virtually.
Recently, Doja Cat has been in the news for conflict within her family. In January 2024, Doja Cat’s mother filed a restraining order seeking to protect herself and the rapper from Raman, who allegedly physically and verbally abused them both. A judge granted Sawyer a five-year restraining order in February 2024 but denied similar protection for Doja Cat from her brother.
Where Is Doja Cat From?
Doja Cat was born in Los Angeles’ Tarzana neighborhood and moved to Rye, New York, shortly after she was born. She lived in New York for five years before moving back to California. From the ages of 8 through 12, Doja Cat lived in Sai Anantam Ashram, a Hindu commune in Santa Monica, California, led by jazz musician John Coltrane’s wife, Alice. While there, Doja Cat learned dance from the Bharatanatyam tradition. However, she found life on the commune restrictive.
“It was very restraining,” she told Rolling Stone. “My brother liked it. He had a lot of friends. But I didn’t have many friends. For me, it was just like, ‘I can’t eat what I want to eat. I can’t really do kid stuff.’ Like, God forbid you don’t have a scarf on your shoulders.” When the family left the ashram, they moved back to Tarzana.
Still, life in the commune was a formative time for Doja Cat. It was there that she discovered her talent for music. She shared with Billboard that she wrote her first song for her mom when she was just 8 years old. “I don’t remember how it goes… I mean I kind of do, but I’m definitely not telling anybody what the lyrics were,” she said. “I’m kind of ashamed. I don’t know why, I guess it’s just too mushy for me.”
Having trained in ballet, tap, jazz, and break dancing, Doja Cat went on to attend a performing arts high school. Friends encouraged her musical talents during this time. “Some friends in high school would tell me I should sing. I started teaching myself to sing in my room,” she told Dazed. “And [I] would make songs on GarageBand with my desktop computer on the floor on a mattress.” By the time, she dropped out of school in her junior year at 16 years old, Doja Cat had already begun recording raps over existing SoundCloud and YouTube beats.
Songs and Albums
Early Music Career
Doja Cat, seen performing in March 2019, broke into the music industry with a record deal when she was 17 years old.
Doja Cat’s music on SoundCloud gained the attention of producers Yeti Beats and Dr. Luke, and she was signed to Dr. Luke’s label Kemosabe Records in 2013 at 17 years old. The next year, the young musician released her debut EP Purrr! Her single from the EP “So High” showed her early promise of attracting fans.
In an interview with HotNewHipHop, Doja Cat shared that she has been influenced by “white people indie music,” as well as TLC, Lil’ Kim, and Aesop Rock. Other inspirations include Missy Elliott, Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, Busta Rhymes, and Lauryn Hill. Her own music style spans multiple genres, too. “I do not consider myself a rock star. I have made pop music. I’m currently making rap, soul, and R&B music with jazz elements,” she told V magazine.
In March 2018, Doja Cat released her first album, Amala. The album sputtered, reaching No. 138 on the Billboard 200 chart more than a year after its release. “A lot of people liked Amala, and that’s great. However, I don’t think it was a finished album,” she told Billboard. “I was smoking hella weed. I was high all the f––g time, and it wasn’t even helping me perceive what was going on musically. I was just really out there partying.”
However, it was her viral video for her song “Mooo!” in August 2018 that caught mainstream attention, including praise from artists Chance the Rapper and Katy Perry. “I knew that it was goofy. It’s very blatantly a joke. But I also wanted it to musically sound good to people, and it does,” she told Rolling Stone in 2021.
Mainstream Success: “Say So” and “Kiss Me More”
Following her viral “Mooo!” success, Doja Cat’s fans were primed for the release of her sophomore album, Hot Pink (2019), which included successful singles “Say So” and “Streets.” Doja Cat earned her first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 song with a remix of “Say So” featuring Nicki Minaj in May 2020. The release of Hot Pink also placed the singer among the Best New Artist nominees at the 2021 Grammy Awards.
In June 2021, Doja Cat released her third studio album, Planet Her. To date, it’s her most successful album, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and earning a Grammy nod for Album of the Year. It included the successful songs “Kiss Me More” featuring SZA, “You Right” with The Weeknd, “Need to Know,” “Woman,” and “Get Into It (Yuh).” Her collaboration with SZA earned the pair the Grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance in 2022. (As of April 2024, Doja Cat has 19 Grammy nominations to her name.)
“Kiss Me More” singers Doja Cat and SZA celebrate their 2022 Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo Group Performance.
In May 2022, Doja Cat released a new song called “Vegas” for the soundtrack of director Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic, which samples Big Mama Thornton’s song “Hound Dog.” Her next purely original music was more than a year away.
Doja Cat dropped her fourth album, Scarlet, in September 2023. Singles that found success included “Paint The Town Red” and “Agora Hills.”
Beyond her own music, Doja Cat is known for her popular collaborations with other artists, including the 2021 song “Best Friend” with rapper Saweetie and a remix of “34+35” with singer Ariana Grande from 2020.
Her unique music style has garnered fans around the world, and she continues to reinvent herself musically. “I’ve rapped since the beginning, and I really couldn’t even sing that well to begin with—I got a lot better,” she told Elle. “I use my voice as a tool to create these worlds, and it’s fine if people think that I can’t rap.”
Who Is Doja Cat Dating?
Doja Cat has remained mostly private about her dating life. She is rumored to be in a relationship with comedian Jeffrey “J” Cyrus. They were first spotted together in New York City in November 2022.
“I love love. I’m possibly a serial dater. I definitely have had that in me a little bit,” she told Harper’s Bazaar in August 2023. “But right now I’m in a different place in my life where I am very committed and very much in love in a different way than before.”
She was previously romantically linked to singer Jawny and rapper French Montana. However, she has openly discussed how she and French Montana have enjoyed a close working relationship and friendship only.
Controversies
Doja Cat has had many controversies throughout her career, including for her use of a homophobic slur and her professional relationship with producer Dr. Luke.
Homophobic Slur
In 2018, Doja Cat was called out for previously using a homophobic slur against Odd Future members Tyler, the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt on Twitter. “I called a couple of people f––ts when I was in high school in 2015 does this mean I don’t deserve support?” she wrote in a since-deleted statement on Twitter. “I’ve said f––t roughly 15 thousand times in my life. Does saying f––t mean you hate gay people? Do I hate gay people? I don’t think I hate gay people. Gay is ok.”
The post garnered heat, and she released a subsequent message before finalizing her thoughts in a third post: “I apologize for the derogatory terms I’ve used in the past and no one should be discriminated against for their race, religion, or sexual orientation,” she wrote. “I love you and I hope to make more great music with and for you in the future.”
In July 2019, Doja Cat told Respect magazine that the biggest misconception about her was “That I am hateful of everybody. We can talk about this all day, but I don’t discriminate against anyone. Not for any race, sexual orientation, religion anything at all. I love people. I love women, I love men, I love animals. People enjoy chaos. I understand it’s human nature. It happens to everyone. It happens to the best of us. Everyone has an opinion.”
Doja Cat addressed her controversial online persona again in an interview with Paper magazine that December. “People would pick on me and use horrible, horrible language, just the worst, and I just didn’t understand why people were so crazy on there,” she said. “So I became the person who would make offensive jokes and do things sort of out of the box.”
In May 2020, she came under fire once more for a song she released on SoundCloud in 2015 titled “Dindu Nuffin,” a demeaning slur for victims of police brutality commonly used within alt-right movements. She removed the song after the backlash.
Working with Dr. Luke
Elsewhere, Doja Cat has received criticism over her working relationship with producer Dr. Luke, who had a years-long court battle with fellow singer Kesha over matters of sexual misconduct and defamation. Kesha filed a civil lawsuit against Dr. Luke in 2014, accusing him of sexual assault and abuse, and Dr. Luke subsequently sued her for defamation. Kesha’s lawsuit was dismissed in 2016, and both artists agreed to a settlement in his defamation case in June 2023. Dr. Luke released a statement following the settlement that he was “absolutely certain that nothing happened. I never drugged or assaulted her.”
Doja Cat is signed to Kemosabe Records, a part of RCA Records that Dr. Luke owns. The producer also worked on some of Doja Cat’s biggest songs, including “Say So,” “Best Friend,” and “Kiss Me More.”
She discussed her relationship to Dr. Luke with Rolling Stone in 2021. “I haven’t worked with him in a very long time,” Doja Cat said. “There’s s–– that he’s credited for, where I’m like, ‘Hmm, I don’t know, I don’t know if you did anything on that.’” When pushed to explain further, she said, “The point is he’s gotten some credit for s––. And, you know, it’s whatever. I don’t think I need to work with him again. I don’t think I need to work with him in the future. I know that… I think it was definitely nice of me to work with him.”
Fan Drama
In July 2023, Doja Cat came under fire for comments she made on social media platform Threads, where she slammed fans who used her real name as their profile names, which many fans insinuated meant she had disdain for them.
She clarified her feelings in a December 2023 interview with Ebro Darden for Apple Music. “One thing I do wanna set straight is you’ll never see a direct quote of me saying I hate my fans. Not once. But it’s a really big misquoted thing. Everybody is saying she hates her fans. Never said that, but I do like to play with that as a meme,” she explained. “I know that people who get it, get it. And I’m fine with that. I don’t have to explain my sense of humor and explain comedy to anyone. If people don’t see the joke, then they just don’t see the joke, and it’s not my responsibility to have them understand.”
Quotes
- I always knew I wanted to entertain people my whole life, I just didn’t know exactly how I was going to do it until I was 16 and everything blossomed on SoundCloud. That’s where it was all born.
- Success is realizing that happiness is a possibility and sadness is temporary.
- What I value the most is having a place to express myself.
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Emily Shiffer has worked as a writer for over 10 years, covering everything from health and wellness to entertainment and celebrities. She previously was on staff at SUCCESS, Men’s Health, and Prevention magazines. Her freelance writing has been featured in Women’s Health, Runner’s World, PEOPLE, and more. Emily is a graduate of Northwestern University, where she majored in magazine journalism at the Medill School of Journalism and minored in musicology. Currently residing in Charleston, South Carolina, Emily enjoys instructing barre, surfing, and long walks on the beach with her miniature Dachshund, Gertrude.
