- Doja Cat teased her new era of music in an interview with Insider on Wednesday at the Patrón El Cielo launch event.
- The "Planet Her" rapper has changed the album title several times — due to, in her words, "ADHD."
- She also said she's moving away from "feminine" performances, though she has no imminent plans to go on tour.
Doja Cat has been teasing fans with juicy hints about her new album, the keenly awaited follow-up to her Grammy-winning pop feast "Planet Her."
However, the trail of breadcrumbs she's leaving is far from linear.
Back in March, Doja suggested with a hashtag that her next release would be dubbed "Hellmouth," but she backtracked shortly after.
"It's not called hEllMoUth either it's called 'First of All,'" she wrote in a now-deleted tweet. "And yes I'm announcing the album title right now."
Just six days later, she tweeted, "lol my album name isn't first of all I'm changing it." Then she deleted that one, too.
Even though Doja is known to make sweeping, half-serious proclamations online, the album title flip-flopping isn't a trolling campaign or marketing scheme.
According to her, it's simply a combination of indecisiveness and crowdsourcing.
On Wednesday, Doja opened up about the fluidity of her creative process in a roundtable interview at the Patrón El Cielo launch party in New York City, where she performed a medley of hits atop the Boom Boom Room's famous bar.
When Insider asked for insight on how she selects an album title, Doja immediately replied: "Good God. I don't know."
"I put my ADHD kind of on display — by accident, I guess," she continued. "I thought that 'Hellmouth' was the name of the album, but then it wasn't. But I'm good at doing things last minute. So I've been firing off random stuff and reading comments and seeing how people receive it and then, you know, saying 'no' a lot. 'Just kidding.'"
"I do think that I finally have a title," she concluded, adding swiftly, "It's not 'First of All.'"
For those who have followed her career, this series of events isn't entirely surprising. Doja has built a reputation as a shape-shifter, an edgelord; an enigmatic pop star who doesn't want to be called a pop star.
The 27-year-old rapper-singer-songwriter rose to fame when her novelty song "Mooo!" went viral in 2018. The infinitely memeable music video starred Doja dressed in a cow costume, eating hamburgers and sticking fries up her nose.
She became a household name in 2020 thanks to "Say So," the standout hit from her sophomore album "Hot Pink." In the short time since, she has been nominated for 16 Grammy Awards, won songwriter of the year at the BMI Pop Awards, and received the titanium award from iHeartRadio for 1 billion spins (and counting).
Now, Doja said she's entering a "darker" phase of her sound and style.
The chart-topper has recently been rocking a buzzcut, which she wore in a bright blonde on Wednesday to honor the "heavenly" theme of the event.
When she shaved her head, Doja told fans that she has "never liked having hair" — but that doesn't mean she's making a statement about gender performance. Asked if androgyny is a major factor in her outfit choices, she replied, "Not often."
"It fluctuates. I can't really define what it is," she said of her current aesthetic. "But musically, I've been trying to go back and sort of pull from things that were huge influences to me as a kid. You know, like jazz influences and stuff like that. So that's been a big inspiration for me lately and sort of a defining characteristic of my music."
Although she doesn't have any imminent plans to go on tour ("We haven't even started that conversation"), Doja revealed she wants to move away from the "feminine" performances that defined her "Planet Her" era, which spawned radio-friendly hits like "Woman" and "Kiss Me More."
"It's gonna be different. That's a word I would use," she said. "Different in the sense of, my last performances were a lot more... feminine energy... and, you know, safe. Not safe. Not safe. I mean, kinda safe."
"This next move is gonna be very fun and a lot more in-depth on who I am," she added. "Less about performing a cute song and wearing a cute outfit."
Doja also took a moment to praise Patrón El Cielo, the first four-times distilled prestige tequila in the world, which she described as "clean" and "pure."
"I'm really into good alcohol when I do drink, 'cause I don't drink often," she said, adding with a smirk, "I used to. I've been a good girl."