We Have to Talk: The Cat's out her Bag
Doja Cat vs. The People
Welcome to We Have to Talk, a fortnightly newsletter in which Sam and George exchange their most pressing and ridiculous reflections on pop culture. Subscribe to get a hot mess of tepid takes directly into your inbox, twice a month.
This week the boys have their claws out for Doja, post affiliate links for a few of their struggling faves, and ponder the merits of touching grass.
S - Hello from prison, George, where I am awaiting trial for being a hater. The inciting incident? Doja Cat’s new album, Scarlett. After a run of crossover pop hits, this new album – commendably written solely by Doja – is an attempt at doing Real Rap™, a defiant statement against those who doubted her pen despite the undeniable wordsmithery of ‘Boss Bitch’ and ‘Need to Know’ (a 10/10, ask your friend).
The album is nice enough but wears its influences on its sleeve; a little Kendrick, a little Tyler, especially in the back half where the neo-soul production comes to the fore. But it left me kind of cold, outside of the divine Agora Hills. If Doja wants to be a capital-A Artist rather than a Popstar (derogatory, apparently), she needs to have more on her mind than the fact that she’s richer and hotter than her alleged haters. It’s a great setup for a punchline, but not exactly the stuff that sustains an hour long LP.
And really, where are these supposed saboteurs, when Doja currently has four hits on the charts? The battle of ‘Doja Cat vs. The People’ seems like it could best be settled out of court just by her logging off, rather than producing a whole album to sneer at the anime-avatar’d Twitter accounts in her mentions who have concerns about whether her boyfriend is an incel or whatever. Unplugging is the ultimate flex.
Other female rappers have had bigger fish to fry recently; Nicki’s husband is back under house arrest after threatening Cardi’s husband Offset via Instagram Live, while Nicki has maybe been hinting she could get the barbs to call in a SWATing on Cardi in retaliation. And just to drag in our favourite unproblematic indie chanteuse Tinashe, she’s found herself embroiled in a instagram-comment Cold War with notable ne'er-dowell Chris Brown about their best-forgotten 2018 flop, Player. Is there something in the music industry air right now!? Do we all just need to touch some grass? Tell me George, have you been embattled this week, and what did you make of the Doja album?
G - Hello from the grass, Sam. I have to confess that I was not aware of a single one of the controversies you’ve rolled off in your last paragraph until right now. That is not intended to sound smug - it’s more just that I returned from a blissful week in Albania to 2500 emails and a mountain of work that I had neither the will nor skill to complete.
But perhaps I should feel smug. Doja, Doja. I have to confess I gave this album a once-over and promptly forgot about it, returning instead to our mother Tinashe’s new mini-album BB/Angel, as well as Victoria Monet’s Jaguar and Jaguar 2, all of which contain wall-to-wall bangers without a trace of smarm. How light and free a song can feel when it’s blissfully removed from Twitter, and arguably any reference of the internet at all!
To that point, the reason I don’t feel bad about being cynical towards this Doja Cat release is it feels like a cynical artist statement in the first place, which just always comes off as disingenuous to me, in any art form. How can I trust you to move me if you’re not trusting me to be moved? I think you also really nail something that drives me insane about social media, and our general lack of media literacy - that the people in Doja Cat’s mentions are likely a) under 18 or b) not real. I have no way of knowing this for sure, but I have a strong hunch!
I have no idea what it’s like to be a female artist and see horrendous, misogynistic, hateful messages directed at you and your artistry every day, but to make a whole album about that experience – even when it’s as tongue-in-cheek as this – is still engaging with these people in good faith. As a result, it only balloons and then embalms that hatred even further - it puts it on record, to be returned to again and again. We see it with JK Rowling: as much as anyone can try reason with her through compassion and sensitivity, all it takes is a user named @xewoiuo829170984374 writing “die, TERF”” for her to feel like a victim. And that probably is how it feels, but really someone just needs to unplug her computer and throw it out the window.
That said, I’m ready to be convinced that Doja Cat knows all of this, and that it’s part of her thesis – is it a comment about the perils of onlinehood generally? To be honest, even if it is, I’m much more happy with the sublime lightness Tinashe has once again cranked out: even when singing about heartbreak, she sounds so blissfully unstressed.
S - Absolutely. The Tinashe album feels like a warm breeze on a late summer evening, and each time I listen, I emerge refreshed and comforted after its brief runtime has flown by. As an aside, ‘Needs’ might be the song-and-video package of the year for me – it’s so addictive and fun. Conversely, I agree about the slightly cynical quality of Doja’s album; as entertaining as I find her general air of imperious irritation, the album is very ground-up internetty in how self involved it feels. It’s a project to help her get to the next step of her career, focussed on over-correcting against insecurities, but doesn't really look outward or offer much to the listener beyond some fun punchlines and flows.
But I wonder, is it really possible to make great art about living on the internet (this present piece of wonderful writing excluded)? I feel artists are getting more inventive with dramatising aspects of the inward-turn and hybridized digital realm we now live in, with films like We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, and Rotting in the Sun, which we touched on last issue. But do you think the online-experience is worth dramatising, even if done well?
G - I think it can be. It’s interesting that both those examples you cite depict a sort of internet dystopia - I’m trying to think of examples of art about the internet containing beauty and hope. First thing that comes to mind is ‘In The End’ by Ryan Beatty (another mutual stanhood between Sam and I, Reader), when he sings: “Pull out the webcam, show off my body” – is he feeling lonely, or is he feeling sexy? ‘Faceshopping’ by Sophie is great, of course, and maybe all of Charli XCX’s ‘How I’m Feeling Now’ - though most of that album is about how she can’t fucking wait to get off the internet and hug her friends.
In terms of books, I read a brilliant short story collection last year called Reward System, which follows a group of interconnected millennials in an unnamed city, all seeking or losing connection via the internet. There’s one really heartbreaking story about an overworked chef who is stuck in a loop of messaging old friends saying, “we need to catch up!”, but these meetings never materialise, and she descends further into her lonely existence. The whole collection is a bit of a depressing read – the weather’s really cold and every character’s job is kind of bleak - but it captures something really truthful about the levels of dread we seem to accept online.
There’s bound to be more positive depictions out there, but as a sidenote, I am generally quite allergic to internet/Twitter humour creeping into comedy films, a la Theater Camp and Bottoms (neither of which I’ve seen, but I found the trailers hard enough to watch, and that, of course, gives me the right to judge). As ever, I feel the urge to throw my cellular device in the water, but I just know I never will. Until then, Tinashe will do.
S: Oh, Ryan. Your referencing of that song also reminded me of Beach Rats, one of the great films about trying to find dick online. And with that, it’s probably time to touch grass and locate some IRL friends to talk to about what I’ve seen on Twitter. Ciao!
From the Drafts:
Oscar Wilde was at his lowest...fat, nasty and broke. Career in shambles. He came on this bitch mad as hell!!! (G)
By episode 138 of the ‘High/Low with EmRata’ podcast, one does start to wonder when this long-promised “High” will materialise. (S)
While watching the gorgeous Thailand-set video for Troye Sivan’s Got Me Started, I was reminded of some sage words Nicki once bequeathed us with: “No I never been there but I like to Bangkok (big fat titties when they hanging out my tank-top.)” (S)
Opulent Tip: Ignore the unforgivable £85 skinny jeans, this Huel-branded fleece is about to replace their iconic t-shirt as a must-have for the self-optimising tech-bro about town. I need an invite to next year’s LFW show. (S)
Spoiler alert: Barry Keoghan shows sizeable wang in Saltburn, but someone I spoke to after spotted “prosthetics designer” high up in the credits. So what is the truth? (G)
The Week That Was:
George is watching: My figure, after seeing another hot dancer in the ‘Got Me Started’ video. (I joke; I shall not discourse.) Also Saltburn. I need Jacob Elordi off all screens immediately, but otherwise, it’s good!
Sam is reading: 100 Years of Solitude, which is lush and transporting but may in fact take me 100 years to finish at my current clip. Never again shall I break my no-books-over-200-pages rule.
George is listening to: Rostam helped produce Vagabon’s new album Sorry I Haven’t Called, and it’s lovely; it really scratches the ‘Bags’ by Clairo itch. From Anti-Fuck: “If you can’t stay for the comedown/I’ll be fine” - OOF.
Sam went and saw: Beautiful Thing at Stratford East. Amusing and heartwarming, with a winning young cast!