Doja Cat: The almighty "cat" of American music, defining genz culture

Not Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Doja Cat's music is representative of GenZ. In particular, "the cat" is a rare black female artist who has done many "miracle" things with her own musical talent.

The world music industry in recent years is considered a "breakthrough" period when more and more talented new faces appear. However, the highlight of which must be mentioned is Doja Cat - a female rapper who has stormed for a long time with her hit songs, spreading every corner.

Doja Cat decided to drop out of school at the age of 16 to pursue her musical dreams. Through some software, Doja Cat began producing her own music and uploaded her first product to SoundCloud, the single So High (2012).

Thanks to the existing relationships, Doja Cat was led into the working environment of professionals, typically signing with RCA Records - The label that has produced generations of legendary vocalists such as Alicia Keys, Miley Cyrus, Justin Timberlake ,...

However, Doja Cat's musical journey after signing with RCA Records was not very smooth. The music disparaged by experts and the public ignorance made Doja Cat so discouraged that she could not find inspiration to compose.

In 2018, Doja Cat released the music video Mooo! and quickly became a craze around the world. Doja Cat's sudden popularity is really confusing for many people when Mooo! is a music video filmed with a green backdrop, adding "3 cents" effects and the content of the song is also very silly. However, through this milestone, Doja Cat has captured the tastes of the audience and started to make better use of social media to bring her music to a strong spread.

Thanks to the charisma of Mooo!, Doja Cat continues to stir up the world with Say so - The hit that once "bossed" on the social network TikTok. Admittedly, the singer continued to release a remix with "queen of rap" Nicki Minaj to help this song directly enter the Hot Billboard 100 chart. Since then, Doja Cat has continuously applied the old formula to release new songs and of course resonate. Thereby, it can be seen that Doja Cat is a very timely artist who knows how to take advantage of the audience's audiovisual trend to promote her career.

At the beginning of her career, Doja Cat said she just wanted to be active as a female rapper. She revealed her music is influenced by 2 women, her mother and Nicki Minaj. If Nicki Minaj is an idol, Doja Cat's mother is the one who exposed her to the music of "hip-hop legends" such as Black Eyed Peas and Earth, Wind & Fire through songs that she plays over and over again in the house.

However, it was not until the release of the album Hot Pink that Doja Cat was recognized as an all-powerful female artist as she could handle many roles such as composing, rapping, singing and producing music. Hot Pink is also the album that helped Doja Cat earn prestigious GRAMMY nominations, including the "best new artist" award.

In an interview, Doja Cat once said that she was not afraid to find a way to survive in the era of female rappers like Cardi B, Meghan Thee Stallion, Lizzo,... bombardment. Doja Cat insists her music is a distinct color, not mixed with anyone.

Success followed success, the 3rd studio album Planet Her has helped the "cat" set many new records, this is also a testament to Doja Cat's assertion. The album is a combination of "irregular" songs, which do not follow a consistent line. This makes it possible for any audience to listen to Doja Cat's album without having to "fret about" because "I like soul music", "I like latin", "I like rap" ,... In Planet Her, Doja Cat was able to please them all.

Also thanks to Planet Her, Doja Cat received 11 nominations at the GRAMMYs 2022, 14 nominations at the Billboard Music Awards 2022, completely surpassing "seniors" such as Taylor Swift, Adele,... It can be said that in 2022, Doja Cat is almost an "unbeatable" female artist in the realm of Hip-hop with unimaginable successes.

However, the success of a music product is not only encapsulated in high rankings on the charts or positive recognition from experts, but it must also be known, mentioned and shared many times by listeners voluntarily. And that is also the biggest success that Doja Cat has achieved in her music career.

It can be seen that most of the cult trends made by GenZ on social media use Doja Cat's music as the main material. From trends such as dancing, cooking or even "lip-syncing", Doja's famous songs such as Kiss Me More, Need To Know, Get Into It (Yuh), Woman,... are named.

Invisibly, this act is repeated so much that the songs have gradually become a characteristic of today's youth culture. Many even use Doja Cat's music to identify GenZ allies with each other. Therefore, there have been many opinions that Doja Cat's music has contributed to defining GenZ culture.

Why say this is the biggest success of the Say So hitmaker's career? Because not every product can become a culture. There are many songs with "unprecedented" achievements such as No.1 Billboard or even typical Grammy gold horns such as Need You Now or Since You Been Gone but still do not achieve the above effect.

Because for a product to become a cultural feature, it depends heavily on the human factor - one of the most difficult conditions to satisfy. And this has been applied very effectively by Doja Cat and her team.

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