Doja Cat: Biography, Musician, Grammy-Successful Singer

FULL NAME: Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini
BORN: October 21, 1995
BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, California
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Libra

Doja Cat, whose actual identify is Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini, was born on October 21, 1995. Her skilled identify got here from a pressure of marijuana (Doja) and her love of cats (she has two of them, Alex and Ray).

Doja Cat and her older brother, Raman, have been raised by their mom, Deborah Sawyer, and their grandmother. Sawyer was a painter and clothes designer. Doja Cat’s father, Dumisani Dlamini, a South African actor and dancer, wasn’t concerned a lot in her upbringing. The two have by no means met in person however have corresponded nearly.

Recently, Doja Cat has been within the information for battle inside her household. In January 2024, Doja Cat’s mom filed a restraining order searching for to guard herself and the rapper from Raman, who allegedly bodily and verbally abused them each. A choose granted Sawyer a five-year restraining order in February 2024 however denied comparable safety for Doja Cat from her brother.

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 5 years earlier than shifting again to California. From the ages of 8 by way of 12, Doja Cat lived in Sai Anantam Ashram, a Hindu commune in Santa Monica, California, led by jazz musician John Coltrane’s spouse, Alice. While there, Doja Cat discovered dance from the Bharatanatyam custom. However, she discovered 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 household left the ashram, they moved again to Tarzana.

Still, life within the commune was a formative time for Doja Cat. It was there that she found her expertise for music. She shared with Billboard that she wrote her first music for her mother when she was simply 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 mentioned. “I’m kind of ashamed. I don’t know why, I guess it’s just too mushy for me.”

Having educated in ballet, faucet, jazz, and break dancing, Doja Cat went on to attend a performing arts highschool. Friends inspired her musical abilities throughout 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 faculty in her junior 12 months at 16 years old, Doja Cat had already begun recording raps over current SoundCloud and YouTube beats.

Early Music Career

Doja Cat, seen performing in March 2019, broke into the music business with a file deal when she was 17 years old.

Doja Cat’s music on SoundCloud gained the eye of producers Yeti Beats and Dr. Luke, and he or she was signed to Dr. Luke’s label Kemosabe Records in 2013 at 17 years old. The subsequent 12 months, the young musician launched her debut EP Purrr! Her single from the EP “So High” confirmed her early promise of attracting followers.

In an interview with HotNewHipHop, Doja Cat shared that she has been influenced by “white people indie music,” in addition to TLC, Lil’ Kim, and Aesop Rock. Other inspirations embrace Missy Elliott, Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, Busta Rhymes, and Lauryn Hill. Her personal music type spans a number of 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 launched her first album, Amala. The album sputtered, reaching No. 138 on the Billboard 200 chart greater than a 12 months after its launch. “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 music “Mooo!” in August 2018 that caught mainstream consideration, together with reward 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 followers have been primed for the discharge of her sophomore album, Hot Pink (2019), which included profitable singles “Say So” and “Streets.” Doja Cat earned her first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 music with a remix of “Say So” that includes Nicki Minaj in May 2020. The launch of Hot Pink additionally placed the singer among the many Best New Artist nominees on the 2021 Grammy Awards.

In June 2021, Doja Cat launched her third studio album, Planet Her. To date, it’s her most profitable album, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and incomes a Grammy nod for Album of the Year. It included the profitable songs “Kiss Me More” that includes 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 identify.)

“Kiss Me More” singers Doja Cat and SZA have fun their 2022 Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo Group Performance.

In May 2022, Doja Cat launched a brand new music referred to as “Vegas” for the soundtrack of director Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic, which samples Big Mama Thornton’s music “Hound Dog.” Her subsequent purely authentic music was greater than a 12 months away.

Doja Cat dropped her fourth album, Scarlet, in September 2023. Singles that discovered success included “Paint The Town Red” and “Agora Hills.”

Beyond her personal music, Doja Cat is understood for her common collaborations with different artists, together with the 2021 music “Best Friend” with rapper Saweetie and a remix of “34+35” with singer Ariana Grande from 2020.

Her distinctive music type has garnered followers all over the world, and he or 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.”

Doja Cat has remained principally personal about her relationship life. She is rumored to be in a relationship with comic Jeffrey “J” Cyrus. They have been first noticed collectively 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 beforehand romantically linked to singer Jawny and rapper French Montana. However, she has brazenly mentioned how she and French Montana have loved a detailed working relationship and friendship solely.

Doja Cat has had many controversies all through her profession, together with for her use of a homophobic slur and her skilled relationship with producer Dr. Luke.

Homophobic Slur

In 2018, Doja Cat was referred to as out for beforehand utilizing a homophobic slur in opposition to 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 assertion 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 put up garnered warmth, and he or she launched a subsequent message earlier than finalizing her ideas in a 3rd put up: “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 most important false impression 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 on-line persona once more 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 mentioned. “So I became the person who would make offensive jokes and do things sort of out of the box.”

In May 2020, she got here beneath hearth as soon as extra for a music she launched on SoundCloud in 2015 titled “Dindu Nuffin,” a demeaning slur for victims of police brutality generally used inside alt-right actions. She eliminated the music after the backlash.

Working with Dr. Luke

Elsewhere, Doja Cat has obtained criticism over her working relationship with producer Dr. Luke, who had a years-long court docket battle with fellow singer Kesha over issues of sexual misconduct and defamation. Kesha filed a civil lawsuit in opposition to 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 each 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, part of RCA Records that Dr. Luke owns. The producer additionally labored on a few of Doja Cat’s largest songs, together with “Say So,” “Best Friend,” and “Kiss Me More.”

She mentioned her relationship to Dr. Luke with Rolling Stone in 2021. “I haven’t worked with him in a very long time,” Doja Cat mentioned. “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 elucidate additional, she mentioned, “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 got here beneath hearth for feedback she made on social media platform Threads, the place she slammed followers who used her actual identify as their profile names, which many followers insinuated meant she had disdain for them.

She clarified her emotions 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 defined. “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.”

• I all the time knew I needed to entertain individuals my complete life, I simply didn’t know precisely how I used to be going to do it till I used to be 16 and every part blossomed on SoundCloud. That’s the place it was all born.
• Success is realizing that happiness is a chance and unhappiness is short-term.
• What I worth probably the most is having a place to precise myself.

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Emily Shiffer has labored as a author for over 10 years, masking every part from well being and wellness to leisure and celebrities. She beforehand was on employees at SUCCESS, Men’s Health, and Prevention magazines. Her freelance writing has been featured in Women’s Health, Runner’s World, PEOPLE, and extra. Emily is a graduate of Northwestern University, the place she majored in journal journalism on the Medill School of Journalism and minored in musicology. Currently residing in Charleston, South Carolina, Emily enjoys instructing barre, browsing, and lengthy walks on the seashore along with her miniature Dachshund, Gertrude.