Doja Cat Enters a New Era of Transformation

By Ariana Mendoza

Music Journalist

Doja Cat has just dropped her latest single and music video, “Attention”. This song shows us a new side of Doja and gives us something we’ve never seen in her usual music. Attention is more of a traditional 90’s rap and hip-hop record. The music video even includes some 90’s visuals and wardrobe. While Doja had addressed, she was going to change her style, many people on the internet were not too fond of the approach she took. However, seeing how Doja Cat’s career grew, it becomes a bit clearer to me.

In the earlier stages of Doja Cat’s career, she already had a debut album, ‘Amala’ which was released in 2018. Although, she didn’t become viral on the internet until after she released a Soundcloud song called ‘Mooo!’ that became a meme, a few months after her debut. It gained so much attention she added the song to the deluxe version of the debut album. As she gained more popularity, she released another album ‘Hot Pink’ the next year. Both these albums were more of a pop record than rap. These two albums had successful hits, like “Juicy”, “Say So” and “Streets”, which all entered the Billboard Top 200.

Later in 2021, Doja Cat released her third studio album, ‘Planet Her’. While this was another pop album, we started to see a little more diversity with features from rap artists like JID and Young Thug. Doja shows off her rapping skills more in this record too with the songs, “Get Into It (Yuh)” and “Need to Know”. This record also had more of a story behind it. The concept of space, just like her album cover, was the theme for her music videos. All five of the singles from this album, such as, “Kiss Me More” and “Women” reach the top 20 in the US Billboard Hot 100. ‘Planet Her’ also was nominated for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album at the Grammy’s.

However, as Doja teases her newest album, she has been tweeting some questionable statements on Twitter. Such as calling her previous albums ‘cash-grabs’

“Planet Her and Hot Pink were cash-grabs and y’all fell for it. Now I can go disappear somewhere             and touch grass with my loved ones on an island while y’all weep for mediocre pop,” said Doja in    a now-deleted tweet.

All the other posts she was making on social media made people worry about her and even received a lot of hate comments too. Now with her latest work, Attention, she addresses a lot of what people were saying about her, clearing up her name by fact-checking the assumptions people have of her. It seems she wasn’t making the music she wanted before and was never taking it too seriously in the rap game. Looking back on her records we can see these sounded more pop than what she is planning on releasing later. She also introduces a new persona called ‘Scarlet’, who is seen in the music video of Attention and on the album cover for the future release.

In one of Doja Cat’s recent Instagram live, she shares that attention is not a song but a peace and a message. She also says that ‘Scarlet’ is a physical symbol for the album. That Scarlet represents transformation, rebirth and new beginnings. In the song, Attention, we see a whole style change. The talking flow and the diss track format from the ’90s hip-hop are prominent in this record.

Doja is ready to let go of her usual pop tracks and is setting the tone to release the rap music she is passionate about.