How Did Doja Cat Become so Famous?

By: Jovillene Datu

Reaching over 300 million views on Youtube, ‘Say So’ by Doja Cat peaked number one on Billboard in May of 2020. It is also recently confirmed by Spotify that Doja Cat is the 6th ranked artist, with the most monthly listeners on Spotify, and yet, how and why is she so famous? 

 Let’s start off with her background. Doja Cat’s birth name is Amala Ratna Zandile Dalamini. Born and raised in Los Angeles, on October 21st, 1995, Amala started her career as a songwriter and singer. Growing up she participated in dance competitions involving classical Indian and soon fell in love with music when learning the piano. She released her first single on Soundcloud ‘So High,’ which caught the attention of RCA Records and Kemonsable. Eventually, at the age of 17 she signed a joint record within these companies and debuted with an EP ‘Purr!’ in 2014. Unfortunately, she did not receive enough recognition to be on mainstream platforms, however she did collaborate with L8LOOMER in 2017, with the song ‘Right Side,’ and gained some attention from the social media. 

    After being on hiatus for 4 years, Doja Cat revealed her single ‘Moo,’ and what started as a meme, ended up receiving 75 million views on Youtube. Not only did her catchy song acquire fan’s attention, but her choice of clothing, dressing as a cow, inflated Instagram. This inspired others to copy her style and recreate her music video. A follow up of her other 2018 album, ‘Amala,’ achieved many compliments from other artists and fans. This then sparked artists to collaborate with her, such as Tyga, and within months she announced her deluxe version of ‘Amala.’

 Doja Cat’s songs did not really gather excessive popularity until the social media app ‘Tik Tok’ blew up. Many individuals used Doja Cat’s songs and created viral dances to captivate the audience. ‘Say so,’ one of her well-known songs, invaded Tik Tok and became one of the most used sounds. Not only that, the song became number one on Billboard’s Hot 100 songs chart. Still, to this day, she performs the song at every music award show, while still changing it’s attributes in each performance. 

 It doesn’t stop there. As soon as her new album ‘Planet her’ came out, fans were roaring with excitement, and Tik Tok’s audience was quick with making her songs viral. ‘Need to know,’ became Doja Cat’s honored song in 2021, reaching more than 100 million views, and 63.69 million streams on Spotify, according to ‘Rap-up.com’.

 Without Tik Tok, Doja Cat might not have received the same amount of recognition she has now. However, she has an “it factor” that makes her irresistible, so her success should not just be credited to Tik Tok.