<\/p>\n
Doja Cat likes to make things difficult.<\/p>\n
That impulse is, in part, a reaction to the fact that so much has seemed to come pretty easily for the Los Angeles rapper and singer as she bloomed into one of the defining pop stars of the 2020s: crowd-pleasing radio smashes, sold-out tours, 19 Grammy nominations and one of the more detailed-obsessed, battle-ready fan bases \u2014 known as \u201ckittenz\u201d \u2014 in modern music.<\/p>\n
To counter the gloss that has coated her commercial sound and career ascent, the Doja Cat way is to always be asking why, with bite and some belligerence. Such flare-ups, often ignited by the artist herself, tend to implicate both Doja and her admirers equally, leaving a crater in the conversation that she must then lift herself out of; some in the blast radius might get left behind, but that\u2019s probably the point.<\/p>\n
The songs that brought Doja all of this attention, for example \u2014 hits like \u201cSay So,\u201d \u201cKiss Me More\u201d and \u201cWoman,\u201d from the albums \u201cHot Pink\u201d and \u201cPlanet Her\u201d \u2014 were just \u201ccash-grabs and yall fell for it,\u201d she once wrote on social media. \u201cNow i can go disappear somewhere and touch grass with my loved ones on an island while yall weep for mediocre pop.\u201d As for her most engaged supporters? If you identify as a kitten, Doja has suggested, you should probably \u201cget off your phone and get a job.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
A very online 29-year-old technology addict, the musician born Amala Dlamini is trolling, usually \u2014 but she means it, too. Trailed since her 2019 breakthrough by a string of these micro-controversies \u2014 the bouts of brutal honesty but also her stubborn, subversive allegiance to so-called<\/a> racial chat rooms<\/a> and edgelord T-shirt choices<\/a> \u2014 Doja Cat appears to find personal and artistic fuel in sparring, especially when shadowboxing with the mirror.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI listen to so much good music, and when I do that, I beat myself up and think that my music should be better,\u201d she said behind blackout shades at her home in Calabasas, Calif., in between heated rounds of Fortnite on the big screen. \u201cI remember making all those songs for \u2018Planet Her\u2019 and \u2018Hot Pink\u2019 and being like, \u2018I don\u2019t wanna listen to this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n