Longitude special: Exploring Doja Cat's extraordinary rise

So, what can we expect from one of the most commercially successful artists of the decade, the serial Grammy-nominated Doja Cat, when she strides onto the Longitude Festival stage this June? One thing’s for sure: it will be a magnificently eclectic set of state-of-the-art pop.

An adept shapeshifter, Doja Cat has brilliantly incorporated many different styles in her output, including hip-hop, Afropop, mumble rap, urbano and R&B. Indeed, Doja Cat is an artist undeniably representative of the 21st century, and more specifically, she is an artist intrinsically of the second decade of the 21st century. In all probability, her particular brand of artistry could not have existed in any previous decade, and assuredly not as a global phenomenon.

During the early 2020s, TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts became major influences on pop culture and the music industry, with the viewership of short form videos soaring. In addition, there was a surge in the number of people communicating in audio chat rooms, such as Clubhouse, which can accommodate groups of thousands of people. It was a cultural landscape in which Doja Cat thrived.

BIGGEST BREAKTHROUGH

Doja Cat was born Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini, in Tarzana, Los Angeles, a Valley neighbourhood from which a diverse mob of successful 21st century artists have emerged. Among them are 11-time Oscar-nominated director Paul Thomas Anderson; salsa supremo Marc Anthony; teen idol Selena Gomez; and even a Kardashian – Khloé. Before them, there was soul kingpin Bobby Womack and author Edgar Rice Burroughs, after whose fictional jungle hero, Tarzan, the borough derived its name.

However, the little Doja Cat didn’t stick around for long. The daughter of an American graphic designer mother of Jewish heritage, and a South African performer father of Zulu heritage, she spent some of her formative years living with her architect and painter grandmother in New York. Subsequently, she returned to California to live with her mother and brother at the Sai Anantam Ashram, a commune in Agoura Hills, in the Santa Monica mountains region of Los Angeles.

There, she practised Hinduism and learned to sing bhajans, devotional songs in Dharmic religions, at temple. Later, the family moved to neighbouring Oak Park, where the young Doja Cat enjoyed a cool-as-ice Los Angeles childhood, and with skateboarding, breakdancing, pop-locking, and day trips to Malibu to surf. She was accepted into a prestigious performing arts high school, studying piano and dance, although due to struggles associated with ADHD, she dropped out at 16.

Instead, she hung out at home, making beats and raps on GarageBand, and uploading them to SoundCloud. Later, she got involved in the Los Angeles underground hip-hop scene, performing at parties. An avowed devotee of Nicki Minaj (Doja Cat’s album Planet Her paid tribute to the Queen of Rap), the singer also dug Lauryn Hill, Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliott, Drake and Erykah Badu.

She also soaked up stuff her Mama liked – Earth, Wind & Fire and Jamiroquai – as well as elements from the Hindu culture of her childhood. Throw in the fact that she was an avid YouTube cratedigger, and you have the ingredients of an original sound.

A producer stumbled across her SoundCloud account, and put her in touch with Yeti Beats, who had recorded a Californian reggae band called Rebelution and several rap acts. He invited Doja Cat to record at his Echo Park studio, which proved to be the beginning of a gilded partnership.

She signed to Kemosabe Records, an imprint of RCA, and released her debut EP Purrr!, which featured the 30 million streaming ‘So High’. Yeti Beats became her co-manager and tour DJ, and also executive produced her 2018 major label breakthrough, as well as her 2019 behemoth album Hot Pink.

Not content with her moderately successful (in Doja Cat money) debut, Amala, she self-published a homemade music video for Mooo! – a track which hadn’t featured on the original album. A song in which she fantasises about being a cow, it was a mammoth internet hit, reaching five million views within a fortnight.

But Doja Cat had no intention of simply being a viral breakout artist. 2019’s Hot Pink – containing a murder of vocal styles and rocket-launching a dozen cheeky insults a minute – made her a superstar. Billboard ranked her at number five on the Top New Artists of 2020 and Rolling Stone ranked her number one on their list of the ten biggest breakthrough artists of 2020.

The album also illustrated her remarkable eye for interesting musical collages – sampling Blink 182 on ‘Bottom Bitch’ – whilst her music videos, ranging from her cavorting as a bawdy robot to skylarking as an insubordinate skate punk, showed her chameleonic range.

MISCHIEVOUS BEHAVIOUR

For her third album, the twice Grammy-nominated Planet Her, she flexed her changeling muscles even further, wrapping the entire record in a sci-fi conceit that featured a fictional planet created by Doja Cat. For good measure, it also included star turns by Ariana Grande, SZA and The Weeknd, and proved the world’s tenth best-selling album of 2021. Planet Her also attested to both Doja Cat’s bossing of TikTok – her videos sparking viral dance and silhouette challenges on the social network – and a penchant for mischievous online behaviour.

Just before the release of her rap album Scarlet in 2023, Doja Cat assumed the role of provocateur. After fans questioned her choice of boyfriend, Doja Cat wrote a scathing response, disparaging a cohort of hardcore supporters who refer to themselves as Kittenz, leaving them under no illusion what she thought of their critique, suggesting they deactivate their fan accounts. Which is what more than 500,000 Instagram followers did, to the delight of Doja Cat who compared it to defeating a large beast.

The opening track from Scarlet – ‘Paint The Town Red’ – set out her stall, in no uncertain terms. With the soothing yet steely sample of Dionne Warwick’s ‘Walk On By’ in the background, Doja Cat spat, “Yeah, bitch, I said what I said / I’d rather be famous instead / I let all that get to my head / I don’t care, I paint the town red.” It became the most popular song in the world for two weeks, according to Billboard’s global chart, with Doja noting, “I had to draw a long line in the sand, now I see long lines at the venue.”

That’s all rearview mirror stuff now. April saw the release of Scarlet 2 Claude, a deluxe version of Scarlet, the title referencing the protagonist Claude Frollo from Victor Hugo’s novel The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. It’s an astute sideswipe at the pressures the music industry places on creatives, alluding to the strains that Claude imposed on Notre Dame heroine Esmeralda.

Elsewhere, Scarlet includes collaborations with zeitgeist rappers A$AP Rocky and Teezo Touchdown, alongside tracks that recall her original 2012 Soundcloud releases. Which of the many fantastic manifestations of Doja Cat will stomp across the grounds of Marlay Park at Longitude? I guess to find out the wildly anticipated answer, you’ll have to be there.

• Doja Cat headlines Longitude on Sunday.