Doja Cat loves boobs so much, she wrote a song dedicated to her own “twins.” It makes sense, then, that she held the release party for her sophomore album, Hot Pink, at New York’s Museum of Sex SuperFunland. If any place can capture Doja’s explicit tendencies and candy-colored whimsy, it’s one brimming with dildos of every shape and size, a spiral slide that spits visitors out of a zebra’s ass, and a bouncy castle made of inflatable boobs.
Doja Cat is a refreshing boost of adrenaline in a rap culture built on overt machismo. She can sling buoyant, humorous bops about literally anything, from her love for the breakfast staple on “Waffles Are Better Than Pancakes,” to the aforementioned ode to her boobs, “Tia Tamera.” Then there’s “Mooo!”, an infectious song about cows where Doja repeatedly sings “Bitch, I’m a cow.” In the DIY music video for the song, she dances in front of a green-screen with bouncing anime boobs, eats a huge burger, and stuffs fries up her nostrils. When the video came out last year, it quickly catapulted her to viral fame.
It’s that off-kilter, cheeky wordplay that keeps fans coming back for more. The day after her album release party, we meet in RCA Records’ Flatiron office, where she’s resting on a burnt orange bean bag in a secluded artist lounge. I ask the 24-year-old west coast rapper where this knack for spontaneous rhymes stems from, and she chalks it up to being high as a kite while recording her first album, Amala.
“I had no idea what was going on 90 percent of the time,” she admits. “I was young and partying every day and I was enjoying myself a little too much. I was also doing nothing a lot, so that whole era was really a blur for me.”
Doja’s quirky, sex-drenched lyrics make it easy for folks to dismiss her as an addition to the pool of “meme rappers” social media spawned in recent years. But her main mission is to make rap more “colorful,” à la the spirited, vibrant aesthetic of Busta Rhymes or rap’s newest golden child, DaBaby. "It's the perfect time for people to be colorful and animated," she says. "We need people who are open to doing something with theme, something with a cartoonish twist. [Rap] is very one dimensional right now."
That’s where Hot Pink, the rapper’s second release under RCA Records, comes in. Drawing inspiration from the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, Doja flips between different personalities, moods, and flows. Even though her signature whimsy is apparent on every track, she’s more than capable of employing a fiery onslaught of bars as easily as she whips up a catchy earworm.
![Hot Pink [Explicit]](https://web.archive.org/web/20200223075811im_/https://hips.hearstapps.com/vader-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/1573237763-51f6JUFBL.jpg?crop=1xw:1xh;center,top&resize=320%3A%2A "Hot Pink [Explicit]")
Her love for music is in her blood. "My mom loves music and it poured into my childhood,” Doja (born Amala Dlamini) saysa, recalling the warm, sultry falsetto of D'Angelo playing through her house, as well as lots of Earth, Wind and Fire. “She played Jamiroquai over and over, the same damn song. What was it? ‘Virtual Insanity?’ She played a lot of Black Eyed Peas, a lot of India Arie, Erykah Badu, a lot of TLC." The songwriting started early too. “I tried writing a song and it wasn't very good. I sung it to my mom and she told me it was bad—but I was eight, so it's okay," she laughs.
When it comes to pinpointing her own sound today, Doja likens her journey to a sponge soaking up water. "I really pull from everyone. I'm absorbent. I'm not saying I'm even half as talented or a quarter as talented as any of the people I'm inspired by, but if I hear a beat Busta Rhymes would absolutely kill, I'll use my voice to do a flow similar to his," she explains. Doja describes her sound as "very sexually driven, very tongue in cheek. Sort of soft but also really, really aggressive in some aspects, and really fun."
Her willingness to experiment makes Hot Pink Doja’s most versatile offering to date. The lead single, “Bottom Bitch,” opens with a bouncy, Blink-182-sampling tune that you’ll probably hear on the next season of Euphoria. The disco-inflected "Say So" offers a healthy dose of nostalgia as Doja's hushed, airy voice floats over a bed of iridescent synths and a funky bassline. Gucci Mane dubs himself "El Gato" on "Like That" and Tyga feathers his laid-back flow on "Juicy.” "Bottom Bitch" and "Won't Bite," featuring rapper Smino, also salute her African heritage. That collaboration came about in the most 2019 way possible: via Instagram DM. After Doja shared his song "Bam 2x" on her Instagram Stories several times, the rapper finally saw and commented, and she used the opportunity to ask for a feature.
"I was like, 'I got this song for you that I think you're going to fucking murder,'” she recalls. "His verse is the best verse on the album, hands down, which fucking sucks because what am I supposed to do now?" she jokes.
But Doja really threw listeners for a loop with "Rules," beginning with an iconic one-liner—"Play with my pussy, but don't play with my emotions"—before showcasing a spitfire lyrical delivery reminiscent of fellow west coast rapper Kendrick Lamar. As one YouTuber commented, "This is the exact same person who had fries in their nostrils." Why yes, it is.
