This cowl picture launched by Kemosabe/RCA exhibits “Scarlet” by Doja Cat. Credit score: AP
LOS ANGELES — Earlier than Doja Cat, the adventurous and infrequently absurdist rap phenomenon born from web celeb, launched her stellar fourth full-length album, the take-no-prisoners “Scarlet,” she bit the hand that feeds.
Kind of.
On social media, she instructed her followers, who name themselves “kittenz” to “get a job.” Just a few of her fan pages demanded an apology after which deactivated their accounts when it wasn’t acquired. No stranger to bucking conference, Doja Cat had impressed dialog about celeb and the followers that make them that means. Did she owe them something? Had been they improper to imagine she did?
“Consideration” was the primary single she dropped — a biting treatise on parasocial relationships, notably, the one between her followers and herself. The sonics amplify the supply: a ‘90s hip-hop beat, the opening strains of the primary verse: “Have a look at me / Have a look at me,” and a break earlier than “You lookin’?”
Fame has its demons, and it’s normally the supply materials for very unimaginative pop music. Right here, Doja Cat flips the trope on its head — for one, she’s deserted the shiny pop of her final two albums, 2021’s “Planet Her” and 2019’s “Sizzling Pink”, and as a substitute sharpened her circulate. All through, it cuts — however her humor isn’t misplaced. “On “Ouchies,” she raps, “A hunnid Billies / I’m the goat / No Eilish.”
Followers as villains could very effectively be a theme right here, as a result of it seems all through “Scarlet.” “F—- The Women” is “Consideration’s” extra unforgiving sister music, a burning cathartic launch — it’s the music equal of a therapist instructing their affected person to jot down a letter with all of the incendiary issues they’d prefer to say to somebody who has wronged them. (And, within the case of this instance, destroy it.) Besides, in fact, as a substitute of eliminating the notice — or having somebody by accident ship the letter to its topic, as is the plot to so many sitcoms — she sends it to everybody, scorched earth-style.
Gone are the times of “Say So” – and even additional away, the comedic virality of the tracks that made her, like “Mooo!” As a substitute there’s the shimmery “Shutcho” and its pattern of the comfortable rock hit “I’m Not In Love” by the English group 10cc; the brand new jack swing sweetness of “Agora Hills”, filtered via Troop’s 1989 hit “All I Do Is Consider You,” and the R&B romance of “Can’t Wait.”
In mid-September, her album opener “Paint the City Crimson” — which encompasses a pattern of Dionne Warwick’s “Stroll On By” — grew to become the primary rap music to hit No. 1 in over a 12 months. That was the longest absence since 2001. (For the history-curious: there was an 18-month hole between Will Smith’s “Wild Wild West” and Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me.) For the previous few months, nation music has occupied the highest spots — if anybody had the ability to dethrone its dominance, it’s Doja and her rule breaking spirit.
On this album, she goes past her “Scarlet Letter” – and wears the colour as a degree of pleasure.