Background and career
Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini (born October 21, 1995), known professionally as Doja Cat ( DOH-jə), is an American rapper and singer-songwriter. Regarded as the "Queen of Pop-Rap", she is known for her musical versatility, live performance skills and humorous internet presence. Billboard named her "one of the world's biggest pop stars" and "one of the defining pop stars of this era", and Time listed her as one of the world's most influential people in 2023. Doja Cat first gained attention in 2012 with her song "So High", which was independently published on SoundCloud, later leading to a commercial release and the independent release of her debut extended play, Purrr! (2014). After signing a recording contract with Kemosabe and RCA Records, she released her debut studio album, Amala (2018), which featured her viral single "Mooo!". Her second studio album, Hot Pink (2019), spawned the single "Say So", which became her first to top the US Billboard Hot 100. Her third studio album, Planet Her (2021), produced a string of top-ten hits, including "Kiss Me More", "Need to Know", and "Woman", with the former winning a Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. Her fourth studio album, Scarlet (2023), adopted a hip-hop-oriented sound and was led by her second US number-one single, "Paint the Town Red", while her fifth album, Vie (2025), marked a return to her pop roots. Doja Cat is one of the best-selling female rappers of all time, with over 34 million records sold between 2018 and 2022. In 2024, Billboard ranked her as the 24th top woman artist and 2nd female rapper of the 21st century—five years after her first charted record (2019). Since 2020, she has won hundreds of accolades, including a Grammy Award from 19 nominations, six Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, six MTV Video Music Awards and eight iHeartRadio Music Awards.
Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini was born on October 21, 1995, in the Tarzana neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Her mother, Deborah Sawyer, is an American graphic designer of Jewish heritage, and her father, Dumisani Dlamini, is a South African performer of Zulu descent, best known for starring as Crocodile in the original Broadway cast of the musical Sarafina! and the 1992 film adaptation. The two had a brief relationship after meeting in New York City where Dumisani performed on Broadway, but he was too busy on tour to spend time with Amala and her brother. He said that he left his family in the U.S. for South Africa out of homesickness in the hopes that they would join him there. He has also claimed that he has a "healthy" relationship with his daughter and that her management team had tried to block all his attempts to contact her out of the fear that they "might lose her". Nevertheless, Dlamini has said on multiple occasions that she is estranged from her father, stating that she "never met him" and later accused him of being a deadbeat to her and her brother. During a 2025 interview with Angie Martinez on her podcast, Doja Cat revealed that she has three additional half-siblings from her mother's side. Soon after her birth, Dlamini moved from Tarzana to Rye, New York, where she lived for five years with her maternal grandmother, an architect and painter. At the age of eight, Dlamini returned to California with her mother and brother to live at the Sai Anantam Ashram, a commune in Agoura Hills. Its spiritual director was jazz musician Alice Coltrane. The family went on to practice Hinduism for four years. Dlamini wore head-covering scarves and sang bhajans while at the temple, and has said that she felt like she could not "be a kid" during her time there. Her family then moved a couple miles north to neighboring Oak Park, California, where she started attending dance lessons and experienced a "sporty childhood", often skateboarding and visiting Malibu for surf camps. Dlamini and her brother were also subjected to racial prejudice as some of the only mixed-race children in the area. As she grew older and moved away from the ashram, she attended breakdancing classes and joined a professional poplocking troupe, with whom she competed in dance battles throughout Los Angeles while still attending high school. Her aunt, a vocal coach, had given Dlamini singing lessons to help her audition for Central Los Angeles Area New High School No. 9, a performing arts high school in Los Angeles. She frequently skipped school to participate in online chatrooms. After becoming discouraged about her education and career path, Dlamini claims that she realized in eleventh grade that "performing and music was all [she] ever cared about." She eventually dropped out at age 16 while in her junior year, attributing this decision to her struggles with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), saying that "it felt like I was stuck in one spot and everybody else was progressing constantly."
Doja Cat has described life after dropping out of school as "messy", claiming that she slept on the floor and spent "all night and day" browsing the internet, looking for beats and instrumentals from YouTube which she downloaded and used to create her own music. After becoming fascinated with internet culture and websites like eBaum's World and Myspace, she taught herself to sing, rap and use GarageBand while at home without a job, frequently making music and uploading it to SoundCloud. In late 2012, "So High" became the first permanent upload on her SoundCloud account. Doja Cat began her career in the Los Angeles underground hip-hop scene, performing at parties and cyphers, and connecting with rappers such as Busdriver, Ill Camille and VerBS, the latter of whom claims to have helped hone her craft and find her first gig. It was during this time that she met producer Jerry "Tizhimself" Powell, who had stumbled upon her SoundCloud account. He introduced her to record producer Yeti Beats, who invited her to record at his studio in the neighbourhood of Echo Park, which also served as "an oasis of sorts for Doja to escape from the turmoil at home". Yeti Beats then connected her with Kemosabe Records, an imprint of RCA Records, where she signed under label executive Dr. Luke and his publishing company Prescription Songs at the age of 17. This deal also came with a temporary artist management partnership with Roc Nation. In August 2014, Doja Cat released her debut EP, Purrr!, described as "spacey, eastern-influenced R&B" by The Fader. "So High" was repackaged and released as her solo commercial debut single prior to the EP's release, and was later featured on the Fox series Empire in the third episode of the show's first season. In mid-2015, Doja Cat temporarily signed to OG Maco's label, OGG. Following the signing, in late 2016, Maco and Doja Cat collaborated on the song "Monster", from Maco's 2017 mixtape, Children of The Rage. She had started experiencing writer's block, which led her to decline American singer Billie Eilish's offer to feature on what would later become her popular 2017 single "Bellyache". Doja Cat would stop releasing music for a while amid what she describes as a "creative limbo", which was influenced by her record labels not paying her much attention, as well as the effects of "finding herself" and smoking too much marijuana.
Her first major commercial release in four years, Doja Cat released the song "Roll with Us" in February 2018 following a brief hiatus. The following month, she released "Go to Town" as the lead single from her debut album, with an accompanying music video. "Candy" was released as the album's second single that same month. The track would later become a sleeper hit after a "dance challenge" on the video-sharing platform TikTok went viral in late 2019. The single consequently charted in countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States, with the latter having the song peak at 86 on the Billboard Hot 100, making this her first solo entry on the chart. On March 30, 2018, Doja Cat's debut studio album Amala was released through RCA and Kemosabe Records, and included the three singles. Its release was largely uneventful, as it was ignored by critics and failed to chart in any market. Doja Cat has since expressed strong disdain toward the record, claiming that it doesn't entirely represent her as an artist and that it isn't a "finished album" since she was constantly partying or high on marijuana during its recording. She claims it was also rushed in order to meet deadlines from the record labels who paid it "almost no support". In August 2018, Doja Cat self-published the homemade music video for "Mooo!", a novelty song with absurdist lyrics in which she fantasizes about being a cow. The video promptly garnered viral success as an internet meme, attaining over three million views in one week. Due to popular demand following this viral success, the single version of "Mooo!" was released onto digital platforms later that month as the lead single from the deluxe edition of Amala. This was followed by the release of the second single, "Tia Tamera" featuring Rico Nasty, and its accompanying music video in February 2019. The full deluxe edition of Amala was released on March 1, 2019, and featured the bonus tracks "Mooo!", "Tia Tamera" and "Juicy". The success of "Mooo!" is believed to have "irrefutably proved" to her record labels that Doja Cat was a marketable artist, which led them to start paying more attention to her.
A remix version of Doja Cat's song "Juicy", from the deluxe version of Amala, added a verse from American rapper Tyga and was released alongside a music video in August 2019 as the lead single from her second studio album. Following the release of the remix, the song debuted at number 83 on the Billboard Hot 100, marking Doja Cat's first entry on the chart, and ultimately peaked at number 41. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) would later award the song a platinum certification in the United States. The song's success led to Amala debuting for the first time on the Billboard 200 chart that same month. In October 2019, Doja Cat released "Bottom Bitch", the second single from her second album. This was followed by the release of the single "Rules" alongside the announcement of her second studio album Hot Pink. Hot Pink was released on November 7, 2019, to generally favorable reviews. The album would eventually peak at number 9 on the Billboard 200. Doja Cat was meant to feature on a track titled "Broward Coward" from an early version of the late XXXTentacion's fourth studio album, Bad Vibes Forever, however the song was ultimately scrapped when the album tracklist was completely revised for its posthumous release in December 2019. She later released the single "Boss Bitch" as part of the soundtrack for the 2020 film Birds of Prey.
In January 2020, "Say So" was sent to radio to become the fourth single off of her album Hot Pink. The song was originally released alongside the album in November 2019, but gained wider popularity through the video-sharing platform TikTok. She performed the song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in February 2020. The next day, she released the music video for the song, directed by Hannah Lux Davis. The solo version of "Say So" peaked at number five on the Hot 100, becoming her first top-ten single, and was the most streamed song of 2020 by a female artist in the United States. In May 2020, following the release of a remix of "Say So" featuring Nicki Minaj, the single topped the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the first number-one single for both artists and the first ever female rap collaboration to peak atop the chart. In March 2020, Doja Cat was set to embark on the Hot Pink Tour in support of the album, before it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She was featured on a remix of the Weeknd's single "In Your Eyes" in May 2020, as well as on the single "Shimmy" by rapper Lil Wayne from the deluxe version of his 2020 album Funeral. In June, she was featured on the single "Pussy Talk" by the rap duo City Girls. She released the music video for her single "Like That". She also uploaded the demo song "Unisex Freestyle" to SoundCloud in late June 2020. At the 20th BET Awards, Doja Cat was nominated for two awards, Best Female Hip Hop Artist and Video of the Year. In August 2020, her song "Freak", which had been on SoundCloud since 2018, was officially released on digital platforms. In May 2020, a 2015 song by Doja Cat titled "Dindu Nuffin" resurfaced. "Dindu Nuffin" is an alt-right term used to ridicule African-American detainees protesting their innocence. After apologizing, Doja Cat said that although the song was intended to flip the term's meaning, it was a "bad decision". Doja Cat denied that the song was a response to the death of Sandra Bland, calling the allegation "one of the most awful rumors that I've ever encountered." She took to Instagram to address accusations after footage began circulating of her on Tinychat in a chat room saying "nigger". She apologized to those offended and said she should not have been on certain chat room sites, although she maintained that she had never been involved in any racist conversations. Doja Cat won the award for Push Best New Artist at the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards, where she also performed a medley of the songs "Say So" and "Like That". She was credited as a lead artist on the remix for Chloe x Halle's song "Do It", which also featured City Girls and Mulatto, the following month. She was featured alongside Australian singer Sia on the track "Del Mar" from Puerto Rican singer Ozuna's 2020 album Enoc, also released in September. The "Juicy" remix featuring Tyga was nominated for Top R&B Song at the 2020 Billboard Music Awards. In October 2020, Doja Cat was featured on American singer Bebe Rexha's single "Baby, I'm Jealous", the lead single from Rexha's second studio album, Better Mistakes. She performed a burlesque-themed medley of "Juicy", "Say So" and "Like That" at the 2020 Billboard Music Awards, inspired by Chicago and Moulin Rouge. That same month, Doja Cat performed both "Baby, I'm Jealous" with Rexha and "Del Mar" with Ozuna on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, respectively. Doja Cat was featured on the album track "Motive" from Ariana Grande's 2020 album Positions, which peaked at number 32 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming both her highest debut and second-ever top 40 entry. Doja Cat performed a metal rendition of "Say So" at the 2020 MTV Europe Music Awards ceremony, where she also won the award for Best New Act. Her performance was criticized for sampling Plini's "Handmade Cities" without permission. The following month, Plini reported that he received an apologetic message from Doja Cat through social media. Doja Cat won the award for The New Artist of 2020 at the 46th People's Choice Awards. She additionally won both New Artist of the Year and Favorite Soul/R&B Female Artist at the 2020 American Music Awards ceremony, where she performed "Baby, I'm Jealous" with Bebe Rexha. On December 24, 2020, Doja Cat released a series of videos on her YouTube channel named "Hot Pink Sessions" where she performed three songs twice with two different "looks". On December 31, 2020, Doja Cat performed "Say So", "Like That", and "Juicy" at the annual Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve show. According to sales in the United States, Billboard ranked Doja Cat at number five on both the Top New Artists of 2020 and Top Female Artists of 2020 charts. After her on-demand audio streams in the U.S. increased by 300% from 2019, Rolling Stone ranked her at number one on their list of the ten biggest breakthrough artists of 2020. Forbes named Doja Cat "one of the top breakout stars of 2020" while including her on their annual 30 Under 30 list. Doja Cat was the fourth most-Googled musician of 2020 in the United States.
