The third studio album from increasingly popular singer-rapper Doja Cat impresses with catchy songs and great features to match.
Doja Cat hasn’t always been well respected as a true artist, considering her major rise to relevance was through a joke song called “MOOO!”. But she used this song to get into a higher standing within the music scene, by then the next year in 2019, working with Tyga on her second hit song, “Juicy”. She helped further her fame in ways that some may find crude, using controversy to boost herself up. But this isn’t uncommon for artists to do, and Doja Cat used it perfectly and now has removed it from the mainstream eye.
With her rollout of the album promotion starting on June 9th, Doja knew how to spark interest with features from artists like The Weeknd, Ariana Grande, and JID being the biggest eye-catchers.
The album starts off with a strong introduction song in “Woman”, while generic in subject matter, feels unique with the different styles and genres Doja meshes together. She turns her voice into an instrument, flexing it not only on this track, but on the entire album. This fits well with the Young Thug feature on the third track, “Payday”, which sees the two fitting over a light instrumental, letting their voices stretch out all over the song and dominating the song in the best way. While it being a bit experimental may turn off some listeners, it’s worth a listen.
The next major standout song, “You Right”, was released as the third single with massive hype around it thanks to The Weeknd feature. Being one of the slower songs on the album it does have a bit more weight to carry after fans were introduced to songs like “Kiss Me More”, “Woman”, and “Naked”. But that weight is lifted fast as it delivers to be one of the major standouts from the album.
It would be a crime to not talk about the addictive “Kiss Me More” featuring SZA. This drug-laced song that constantly keeps you entertained, blew up over TikTok and has been all over the place. It’s an incredible song that also helps give more hype to SZA’s album that hopefully will arrive soon.
The album slightly dips in quality nearing the end with “Ain’t Shit” and “Imagine” being slightly disappointing compared to the rest of the project’s high-end vocals, but that’s not to discredit and say that those two songs are completely awful. They still have amazing production with intriguing ideas, but fall slightly flat in comparison to the rest of the project’s high standard.
In the end, Doja’s third studio album is good and will be heard for the rest of the summer and possibly the rest of the year. Expected to go #2 in the charts with 110k sales, behind Tyler The Creator, it’s a welcome addition to this solid year of drops.
8 / 10
Best tracks: “Woman”, “Naked”, “You Right”, “Kiss Me More”
Written by Joey Valcarcel
Mic Cheque 