#239 — Doja Cat —Hot Pink (2019)
A product of social media for better or worse.
Female rap in the mainstream has come a long way in the last 25-years. In the last 15 years really, and you can reliably place the point where you get more women rappers up-front and on their own as 2010 when Nicki Minaj released Pink Friday. That’s not to disrespect the many women who rapped before, but in terms of breakthrough and proliferation — that’s the deal.
Doja’s career is an interesting and at times weird one which relies on the Internet more than you’d think. Hot Pink isn’t her first album, it’s her second. The first didn’t land anywhere, didn’t chart, just released and poof — gone.
Then there’s “Moooooo”. A self-published, home-made video with Doja dressed in cowprint singing an absurd song about being a cow — it went viral which back in 2018 meant a bit more because the social media space wasn’t quite as corroded as it is these days.
Then there’s the use of twitter from when she was a teenager, an early track which — well yikes — and the appearances in right-wing tiny chat channels, leading to the incredible “she in racial chatrooms showing feet” tweet. Doja values her time spent Online and in internet subcultures, but I think we all know that can be good or it can be bad.
There’s been enough flirting with the right-wing here to ring a few alarm bells, and enough apologies from Doja about it — but then something else happens. With the right-wing being even less shameless, it’ll be interesting to see what the next few years bring her. Is it all shitposting, or is it something else?
Let’s get to the music. Hot Pink isn’t a high-paced album, there’s an almost dream-like quality to some of the production here. It’s mostly a slightly stoned, cruisey vibe punctuated with some up-beat pop tracks that take that Pharrell reclamation of disco riffs a little bit more saccharine, and a few odd tracks that try and push a boundary with mixed results.
Wait, what the fuck? The track Bottom Bitch samples Whats My Age Again? by Blink 182. Slowed down, but that’s them. Man, I’m getting old.
Doja Cat has a great singing voice, and her slow soulful tracks are the ones that really shine on this album. Having given this a few spins, her voice has so much range and creativity when it’s not rapping that when she breaks into it you feel like it’s constricting her ability rather than expanding it.
It’s got a couple of billion-stream tracks in Say So and Streets, both tracks where she’s working solo but which have such opposite styles you appreciate the talent at work.
This isn’t a debut, but it’s probably counts as her debut given it’s the album that went biggest first. I’ve heard some of her tracks since, and know there’s an unbelievable Dionne Warwick sample use on one of her biggest hits. Shame it wasn’t the Blink sample eh.
Doja Cat — Hot Pink — 2019
Best Track: It’s probably Streets. Remember how 21 Savage took trap beats and made a deliberately unpleasant album? Doja takes similar beats and delivers a song about wanting to get back with her ex.
Underrated Banger: Better Than Me on the back half of the album. Little bit dream pop, little bit bouncy. Nice.
You can find more Doja here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzpl23pGTHVYqvKsgY0A-_w
