Scarlet
“I never learned to superstar from a textbook,” Doja Cat snarls towards the end of “Attention,” a song that’s all at once a boom-bap showcase, an R&B slow-burner, and a canny summary of her against-the-odds success. Those who remember Doja’s breakthrough (a viral 2018 joke song, “Mooo!”, whose DIY video had her shoving french fries in her nose in front of a homemade green screen) probably wouldn’t have predicted that a few years later, the girl in the cow suit would be a household name. But for Doja, being an internet goofball and a multiplatinum pop star aren’t just compatible, they’re complementary—a duality attuned to her audience’s craving for realness. With her fourth album, *Scarlet*, the maverick adds “formidable rapper” to her growing list of distinctions. In since-deleted tweets from April 2023, Doja made a pledge: “no more pop,” she wrote, following up with a vow to prove wrong the naysayers doubting her rap skills. *Scarlet* makes good on that promise, particularly its first half, a far cry from the sugary bops on 2021’s star-making *Planet Her*. Instead she hops between hard-edged beats that evoke NYC in ’94 or Chicago in 2012, crowing over the spoils of her mainstream success while playfully rejecting its terms. “I’m a puppet, I’m a sheep, I’m a cash cow/I’m the fastest-growing bitch on all your apps now,” she deadpans on “Demons,” thumbing her nose at anyone who conflates glowing up with selling out. And on “97,” the album’s best pure rap performance, she embraces the troll’s mantra that all clicks are good clicks, spitting, “That’s a comment, that’s a view, and that’s a rating/That’s some hating, and that’s engagement I could use.” Behind the provocations, though, is an artist with the idiosyncratic chops to back them up. That’s as true in *Scarlet*’s lusty midsection as it is on its gulliest rap tracks: No one else would interrupt a dreamy love song (“Agora Hills”) to giggle in Valley Girl vocal fry, “Sorry, just taking a sip of my root beer!” (No one, that is, but Nicki Minaj, Doja’s clearest influence, who paved the way for women who juggle art-pop with hip-hop bona fides.) As catchy as it is contrarian, *Scarlet* offers a suggestion: Maybe it’s Doja’s willingness to reject the premise of being a pop star that makes her such a compelling one. On the album’s sweetest track, “Love Life,” she takes in her view from the top—still the weirdo her fans met in a cow suit but more confident in her contradictions. “They love when I embrace my flaws/I love it when they doin’ the same,” she raps softly. “I love it when my fans love change/That’s how we change the game.”
In proving herself as a rapper, Doja Cat offers up an uneven album that is accomplished but gets bogged down in reactive and repetitive songs.
In proving herself as a rapper, Doja Cat offers up an uneven album that is accomplished but gets bogged down in reactive and repetitive songs.
Scarlet, is for all intents and purposes a new world that Doja Cat has woven. While she’s always had a knack for vocal gymnastics with her signature rasp, this new darker chapter is full of bravado, vulgarity, soul samples and thumping 808 drums.
Doja Cat doesn't want you to like her. But with a Number One hit and a memorable fourth album, the attention is unlikely to wane
Scarlet, is for all intents and purposes a new world that Doja Cat has woven. While she’s always had a knack for vocal gymnastics with her signature rasp, this new darker chapter is full of bravado, vulgarity, soul samples and thumping 808 drums.
Doja Cat doesn't want you to like her. But with a Number One hit and a memorable fourth album, the attention is unlikely to wane
As with hit 2021 album ‘Planet Her’, this record operates in its own strange world
As with hit 2021 album ‘Planet Her’, this record operates in its own strange world
Doja’s return to rap on 'Scarlet' clears up any doubt over her versatility, putting wavering fans in their place.
Doja’s return to rap on 'Scarlet' clears up any doubt over her versatility, putting wavering fans in their place.
Just shy of a decade ago, Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini, otherwise known as Doja Cat, crept onto the TikTok scene with ‘So High’, which led to subsequent
Just shy of a decade ago, Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini, otherwise known as Doja Cat, crept onto the TikTok scene with ‘So High’, which led to subsequent
Doja Cat’s fourth album, ‘Scarlet,’ is the work of a talented MC in search of the right tonal balance. Read our review.
Doja Cat’s fourth album, ‘Scarlet,’ is the work of a talented MC in search of the right tonal balance. Read our review.
Doja Cat's newest release "Scarlet" is out now. Read Sam Franzini's review of the new album for Northern Transmissions.
Doja Cat's newest release "Scarlet" is out now. Read Sam Franzini's review of the new album for Northern Transmissions.
There’s a pugilistic force to the rapper’s lyricism as she takes on her diehard fans’ sense of entitlement, but even amid some experimental production, she starts to repeat herself
There’s a pugilistic force to the rapper’s lyricism as she takes on her diehard fans’ sense of entitlement, but even amid some experimental production, she starts to repeat herself