Doja Cat's new album Scarlet is finally here. The fourth album from the pop star born Amala Zandile Dlamini arrives after a bumpy, fascinating, yet undeniable successful months-long promo campaign: Doja successfully alienated hundreds of thousands of fans for refusing to say that she loved them, yet scored a No.
1 hit with the Dionne Warwick-sampling "Paint The Town Red." Her song "Demons" attracted the ire of antsy Christians looking for another Satanic panic, but their ire wasn't enough to stop her from a performance of the song as part of an energetic medley at the 2023 MTV VMAs.
The entire ride was par for the course of Doja Cat, whose appeal lies partially in how much fun she has when she knows all eyes are on her.
Last year, she gleefully trolled the media and watchful fans in the lead-up to her new album, insisting at one point that the project would be "'90s German rave." Who knows, perhaps the mix-up with her Scarlet cover art, where the originally announced image actually belonged to a German death metal band, was a part of her jokey process?
Read more on thefader.com