In the past few years, Doja Cat has catapulted to pop megastardom.
Though the rapper has been around for years, she has just recently begun to see smash success
on the charts.
Her viral hits Mooo and Juicy introduced her to a wider Internet audience.
But it was Her album, Hot Pink, that contained her biggest hit to date, Say So, which shot
Doja into the stratosphere of mainstream success.
Doja Cat is loved for her, quirky, creative, tongue-in-cheek lyrics that she uses inher
own songs, as well as her collaborations with artists like Ariana Grande, SZA, and Rico
Nasty.
On the outside, it seems like Doja has the career most aspiring musicians want: mainstream
success, millions of streams, and a Grammy-Win.
Though Doja is extremely talented and her stage presence is otherworldly, she’s been
more than transparent that she isn't fully satisfied with her career, and has announced
that she’s quitting music.
Let’s get into some of the issues that one of music’s hottest it-girls is facing.
Dr. Luke Contract: It’s well-known that Doja Cat is in a contract
with her producer, Dr. Luke.
Dr. Luke has many allegations against him, most notably from Kesha, who faced mistreatment
and SA during her working relationship with the producer.
The allegations culminated in both public accusations from Kesha, as well as her filing
a lawsuit against him in 2014.
Before going further, I want to make it clear that I’m not blaming Doja for any of Dr.
Luke’s actions, nor will I imply that she was complicit in them.
She signed with him before these allegations surfaced, and has never appeared to support
Dr. Luke.
Unfortunately, though, she does have to fulfill the obligations of her contract with his record
label.
Aside from his personal actions, Doja has admitted to reconsidering her professional
relationship with Dr. Luke.
Doja is signed to Dr. Luke’s Label Kemosabe Records, which is owned by Sony Entertainment.
Kemosabe jointly signs many of their artists with RCA Records, which is also owned by Sony.
After his legal battle with Kesha, Sony distanced themselves from Dr. Luke as of 2017.
In an Interview with Rolling Stone, Doja openly accused Dr. Luke of taking credit for some
of her hits, when he barely worked on them, or didn’t even touch them at all.
Doja signed with Dr. Luke in 2013 when she was about 17.
Kemosabe Records released her initial albums which gained Doja mild success and recognition.
For the majority of her contract with Dr. Luke, Doja has kept quiet about his allegations
and their working relationship.
She’s never spoken badly about him, but she has never publicly supported him either.
However, Doja’s #1 Hit Say So was produced by Dr. Luke, making him an inextricable part
of her success.
Along with Doja, Dr. Luke was nominated for a Grammy for Say So, and was nominated again
the following year for his work on her next album, Planet Her.
By late 2021, Doja Cat claimed that she hadn't personally worked with Dr. Luke in a long
time.
She claimed he received credit for some songs on Planet Her that he’d barely worked on,
if at all.
Doja Cat herself said, “I don’t think I need to work with him again.
I don’t think I need to work with him in the future.
It was definitely nice of me to work with him.”
However, after the Rolling Stone Interview, Doja sent a followup email all but recanting
her statements about Dr. Luke, saying that she didn’t intend to imply he received credit
he didn’t deserve for her work.
It’s not clear whether she said this because she truly changed her mind, or because she
didn’t want the comments to hurt her career in the future.
Doja Cat Burnout: Doja Cat has had a noticeably busy promotion
schedule.
It seems like she’s been at every music festival and award show for the past two years.
During her promotions for Say So, it seemed like we were getting a new performance and
version of the song every day.
While Doja and her team should be commended for giving us new, innovative performances
each time Doja hits the stage, it’s clear she’s working a lot and is exhausted.
In October of 2021, Doja Cat admitted to feeling both rundown and overworked.
In now-deleted Tweets, she said, "I'm not happy.
I'm done saying yes to cuz I can't even have a week to just chill.
I'm never not working.
I'm tired," and "i just keep agreeing to shit i dont wanna do in the future.
its my own dumb ass fault.and then I'm too tired to put any effort into this shit cuz
I'm so run down from everything else."
Aside from her demanding music career, Doja has also done brand deals, YouTube videos
for magazines like Vogue, and hosted award shows.
She also has a large social media presence, and a lot of her time on social media is spent
making promotional posts.
Doja also admitted to having very little time to herself or time to rest.
When fans told her to take a break and skip her upcoming concerts, she responded that
she couldn’t, since she’s contractually obligated to do most of her performances.
It also became evident that Doja became tired of performing the same few songs over and
over, as she was mostly performing her smash hits with very few opportunities to perform
some of her lesser known songs.
Despite its multiple iterations, Doja Cat admitted to being especially tired of Say
So.
Fans were also quick to point out how absolutely fed up Doja seemed to be with Say So in some
of her live performances.
Even after publicly announcing she was exhausted, we would go on to see Doja Cat promote following
singles like kiss me more and need to know with just as busy of a schedule.
She expressed being just as exhausted and dissatisfied during promotions for Planet
Her.
According to Doja, she hadn’t enjoyed making music in five years.
Now, instead of getting to creatively make music on her own, she was constantly being
dragged to events and other obligations she was all but forced to attend, when she’d
rather be home.
Instead of being able to organically make music, her career was now micromanaged.
Taco bell jingle For Doja, that took most of the fun out of making music.
Instead of expressing herself artistically, she faced immense pressure from her label
and fans to make a certain type of music, and to churn out hits at a breakneck pace.
Through her nearly two-year long performing schedule, Doja made massive accomplishments
in her career.
She’s won People’s Choice Awards, VMAs, AMAs, and Billboard Awards for her work on
both Hot Pink and Planet Her.
Most recently, Doja Cat won her first Grammy for Best Pop Duo performance for Kiss Me More.
Her Grammy Win came less than 2 weeks after she announced she was quitting music.
Back in March, Doja Cat was scheduled to headline a music festival in Paraguay.
However, inclement weather caused flooding and unsafe conditions, and the festival was
cancelled.
Apparently, the entire time she was in Paraguay, Doja Cat mostly stayed in the hotel and kept
to herself, posting multiple pictures online.
She took an extremely long time getting ready inside, and fans who were waiting outside
of the hotel grew frustrated.
Since they wouldn’t be able to see Doja at the music festival, the fans hoped she
would at least come greet them outside of her hotel.
Disgruntled fans took their frustrations to social media, along with claims that Doja
wasn’t showing love to Paraguay because she hadn’t made a single post about being
in the country.
In addition, she received undeserved hate for not appearing at the festival, though
it had been cancelled for safety reasons.
Doja was referred to on Twitter as Paraguay’s public enemy number one.
It seems that she had had enough of being pulled in multiple different directions and
criticized, and after multiple twitter spats with fans, doja announced she was quitting
music.
She posted a series of tweets saying that she quit and that music was dead to her, and
she wouldn’t take any more pictures with fans after her tour.
She also said her music career lately had been a nightmare and that she couldn’t wait
to disappear.
Her Twitter name changed to “ I quit” to emphasize her point.
Shortly after, she performed at Lollapalooza Brazil and tweeted that she felt her first
night performance wasn’t good and she promised to do better the following night.
Fans began to wonder what exactly Doja meant by quitting music.
Those who had bought tickets to see her summer tour with the weekend tweeted their concerns.
Doja confirmed that she would still go on tour, release the rest of her music, fulfill
her other contract obligations and then disappear from music.
She pointed out that releasing and promoting content she’d already finished was much
different than continuing to make music.
Doja was asked again about her intended retirement from music on the Grammy’s red carpet.
THe irony wasn’t lost that an artist who had just claimed to quit music was currently
nominated for 8 grammys.
Doja didn’t expand further on her plans to quit music.
She merely deflected the question and reassured fans she'd perform at the after hours tour
with
the weekend.
Later that night, when Doja won her first Grammy, she was extremely emotional over the
win, saying she liked to downplay a lot of things, but the Grammy win was genuinely a
big deal to her.
Whether or not she’s quitting music is yet to be seen, but Doja was still happy to be
recognized for the hard work she’d done previously, and to see that her grueling schedule
had paid off.
Recently, it’s just been announced that Doja Cat is nominated for 14 Billboard music
awards, including top artist.
The awards show will air on May 15.Certainly, in the meantime, Doja Cat will continue her
promotions and rehearsals for the after hours tour, which kicks off in early July.
Where/ When was Doja Happiest?: It really is upsetting that the majority of
Doja’s mainstream career hasn’t been enjoyable for her.
It’s clear that she’s been struggling the past few years to deal with becoming one
of the biggest pop stars in the world almost overnight.
Doja Cat went from making music for herself and playing video games to feeling more like
a product of her label than a true artist.
Based on the statements she’s made on social media, Doja appears to be burnt out and struggling
with her mental health, which is understandable considering her exhausting schedule and the
constant online criticism she receives.
It really doesn’t seem like she’s been able to genuinely enjoy music since around
her Tia Tamera/ Juicy era.
There, it still seemed like Doja had most of her own creative control, and was choosing
the majority of her own outfits and was having fun on stage.
She was just gaining mainstream traction, and wasn’t yet jaded with fame and the music
industry.
When Doja was making music like Mooo, she was very clearly doing it for herself, not
because she felt any sort of pressure to make music a certain way.
Doja’s musical career had started online, and the song was evident of someone using
music and the Internet simply to have fun.
Just a few years later, her career would be in a completely different place.
Doja Cat started making music as a teenage dropout using programs like Garageband and
Soundcloud.
It was more of a creative passion than anything Doja hoped to make into a career.
She was using music to escape problems in her personal life.
Doja was also interested in online gaming, chat rooms, and social media, her behavior
in some of which has also got her into some hot water.
As she began to experience her initial brushes with fame, Doja took a hiatus from music,
which she attributed to a combination of writers block, attempting to find herself, and smoking
too much.
It’s always kind of seemed like Doja never intended to be a megastar, and never really
wanted it.
Though she’s admitted it in retrospect, it was also evident at the time that she was
happy when she was relatively unknown by the mainstream, and just had a tight knit group
of supportive fans.
Then, she could still make music and perform, but could also live and exist on the Internet
in relative anonymity instead of having every aspect of her being dictated and criticized.
Though she doesn’t always go about it in the best way, it’s admirable that Doja has
been honest about struggling to adjust to fame instead of pretending she’s enjoying
all of the major changes.
Despite this, she’s done her best these past few years to still give her fans energetic,
unique performances.
However, Doja Cat is human like the rest of us, and everyone has their breaking point.
If she does decide to quit music, that’s completely her right, especially if that’s
what’s best for her mental health.
Even if she doesn’t, she deserves a long break to just disappear, recharge, and live
her life away from us, however possible that is at this point.
She doesn’t owe us anything.
So I hope she chooses to do whatever is going to bring her peace, but in the meantime is
able to have access to more resources for her mental health.
right now, it seems like Doja’s only coping strategy is taking to social media, which
isn’t the same as seeking professional help.
Aside from concerning posts about being exhausted, Doja has also made posts in the past, especially
on tiktok, displaying odd behaviors.
Of course, she very well could be seeking professional help regarding her mental health
and just hasn't mentioned it because that’s her own private business.
Though no one deserves to experience the intense amount of pressure and critique Doja does,
her story is an important one to watch.
Hopefully her struggles with fame and maintaining her demanding schedule encourage aspiring
artists to think carefully about the repercussions of pursuing mainstream fame.
Doja Cat is yet another example that all that glitters, definitely is not gold.