Doja Cat on the rise
American music sensation Doja Cat talks about her Nicki Minaj collab and her South African roots
COMPILED BY NICI DE WET
SHE named herself after a love of cats and a special strain of the green stuff she used to smoke. Quirky and creative – that’s Doja Cat. But you can also add super successful and driven to the list because she’s one of the hottest talents in music right now. In just under a year the 24-year-old American songbird, daughter of South African actor Dumisani Dlamini, has gone from unofficial TikTok queen to chart-topping pop phenomenon and it’s all thanks to her smash hit, Say So.
After first going viral on the video-sharing site, the catchy disco-infused track caught on in mainstream music circles and it’s quickly become one of the biggest streaming songs of the year.
When rap queen Nicki Minaj jumped on board for a remix, it went straight to No 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart last month, dethroning Beyoncé and Megan Thee Stallion’s Savage remix and scoring Doja Cat her first No 1 hit.
Nicki, among the first to congratulate her, tweeted, “Dear Doja Cat. Thanks for trusting me with your baby. I hope I lived up to your expectations. You’re extremely talented and deserving of this moment.”
The quirky star celebrated – quarantine style – at home. “I had put on some pirate gear and then I got a call to go outside. So I go and everyone is standing in the driveway, my mom, my manager . . . and they’re blasting my music. I was like, sweating because the neighbours were coming out! But it was really cute,” she told Billboard Live.
As to how she landed a collaboration with a superstar such as Minaj, she says she’d been hoping for it for a long time and then it just happened. “I felt like I manifested it or something.”
Doja caused a minor stir with her fans after promising them she’d flash her boobs if she got to No 1. But she later backtracked, saying she was just joking. “These boobs ain’t gonna show themselves, you guys,” she tweeted.
NOT everything in Doja Cat’s life is sunshine and roses, however. Since becoming famous, her turbulent relationship with her father has been thrust into the spotlight. In a clip, which surfaced earlier this year, she’s seen chatting to actress Whoopi Goldberg, who starred alongside her father in the 1992 movie Sarafina! “Yeah, isn’t that crazy. And I didn’t get to meet him but you did,” Doja Cat – who was born Amalaratna Zandile Dlamini – tells a stunned Whoopi. In another interview she says her dad is “all over my Instagram, but what’s funny is I’ve never met him. He’s all in the comments like, ‘My African princess!’ And I’m like, ‘Whaaaat?!” Responding to the clip, Dumisani told Metro FM last month that he’s been trying to reach out to his daughter, but has been blocked.
“I’ve tried to search for my baby and the company that runs her entertainment has been blocking me. They know if I could get hold of her, maybe she’ll disappear from the picture.”
Later in the interview he appears to change his tune, saying his daughter had spoken to him before becoming famous, and suggested her claims to Whoopi may have been made up.
“She got hold of me. We spoke. Now when she’s there and on top, she has to grab the whole world’s attention, especially in SA because she’s a South African and her daddy is here. It’s a made-up thing.”
Dumisani had a relationship with Doja Cat’s mother – a Jewish-American painter named Deborah Elizabeth Sawyer – after he finished the Sarafina! promo tour in the US in the mid-’90s.
He stayed in the US and they had two kids. Citing homesickness, he eventually returned to SA with the intention of bringing his “American family” over but
things didn’t pan out as planned.
THE chart- topping singer also found herself in hot water on social media recently for what some deemed racist remarks. She was accused of participating in racist video chats and writing a song in 2015 called Dindu Nuffin [meaning “didn’t do nothing”], a racist slur mocking victims of police brutality. Shortly after clips of her involvement emerged, #DojaIsOverParty started trending on Twitter. In a statement on Instagram, she explained that since she was a child she’s been active on some sites she “shouldn’t have been on”. She explained that the song was in “no way” tied to anything outside of her personal experience and was written in response to “people who often used that term to hurt me”. She says her intention was to “flip” its meaning but admits it was a bad decision. “I’m a black woman,” she continued. “Half of my family is black from South Africa and I’m very proud of where I come from.” “I understand my influence and impact and I’m taking this very seriously,” she added. I love you all and I’m sorry for upsetting or hurting any of you. That’s not my character.” This isn’t the first time she’s been called out publicly. In September 2018 she was accused of making homophobic slurs when she used the word f****t to describe hip-hop artists Tyler, the
Creator and Earl Sweatshirt.
She initially defended her remarks, saying, “I’ve said “f****t roughly like, 15 000 times in my life, does saying it mean you hate gay people?”
Her response was met by even more backlash and the singer then issued a series of apologies and deleted her tweets.
GROWING up listening to the likes of Jamiroquai, Earth, Wind & Fire, Erykah Badu and TLC, Doja says she always knew she wanted to entertain people. At 11 she took up break dancing and danced in a crew in Los Angeles, even competing in organised underground battles.
She quit school while in Grade 11 to focus on music. Her first song – So High – appeared on SoundCloud in 2013 and went on to be featured on the TV show Empire. That same year she signed her first record deal.
She says for a long time she was “heavily addicted to weed” but has since stopped.
In August 2018 she released her novelty song Mooo! in which she fantasises about being a cow. Along with its meme-inspired video it went viral, even earning praise from artists such as Chris Brown and Katy Perry, who tweeted, “Send a link to cow suit please”.
In November last year – a year after releasing her debut album, Amala – she dropped her second album, Hot Pink. Its first single, Candy, spawned a viral dance challenge on TikTok and marked her first solo entry into the Billboard Hot 100 Chart.
Despite her sexy tunes, she’s single after recently splitting from US singer Johnny Utah (23), whom she’d dated briefly.
So what’s next for the star, who was forced to cancel her Hot Pink Tour due to the Covid-19 pandemic?
She features on a remix of The Weeknd’s single In Your Eyes while a collaboration with Ariana Grande is in the works. Commenting on her success, Doja says she’s proof that if she can do it, anybody can.
“It’s not impossible. I’m really immature, that’s kind of my brand. I just feel like I can prove to my fans that it’s not complex and you don’t need to be perfect. Just be whoever you are – goofy or whatever.”