The following interviews and photo shoots were conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike
DOJA CAT is reimagining pop stardom in her own fearlessly provocative and occasionally trippy image—and the reward is in the long, strange journey.
BY ANGIE MARTINEZ
There’s a case to be made that it was during the pandemic that the internet finally subsumed us—which is precisely when Amala Dlamini, a.k.a. Doja Cat, became a global pop star. Dlamini, 27, was born in Los Angeles and spent time as a child with her mother at an ashram led by jazz musician Alice Coltrane. But she is also a member of the connected generation whose creative DNA is defined not by a record collection as much as by a swirling torrent of songs, sounds, clips and memes. She has been releasing music for more than a decade, but her mainstream breakthrough came in late 2019 with “Say So,” a masterful mash-up of disco, hip-hop, and funk vibes that became a left-field sensation on the eve of lockdown, inspiring a TikTok dance challenge. Since then, there have been more hits, tours, and a Grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for “Kiss Me More,” a collaboration with SZA off 2021’s Planet Her. In June, she released “Attention,” the first single from her new album, Scarlet, which will be accompanied by her first arena tour this fall. Dlamini sat down with rap-radio legend and media entrepreneur Angie Martinez to discuss art, fame, and finding your way—on Instagram and IRL.
ANGIE MARTINEZ: An icon by definition is “a person or a thing regarded as a representative symbol or as worthy of veneration.” Do you see yourself as worthy of veneration?
I don’t. I think I deserve love and respect from the people that I love and respect back—and I guess respect means different things to some people. I put myself out there on social media and TV. I shoot my image out onto these screens. But I don’t really put myself out there in real life.