Doja Cat aired out a lot grievances on her 2023 album Scarlet.
And in a new interview with Jack Harlow for Present Space, the “Paint the Town Red” rapper explained why tapping into her own fury was such an important part of her creative process. “Scarlet is a very, to put it simply, quite an angry project,” she said in the conversation published Thursday.
“I think the point of that album was to showcase anger and how it processes through my mind, but also it’s about coming to your own defense and love,” Doja continued. “It’s sort of my ‘Why I oughta!’ moment of squaring up with everyone and defending myself, telling myself that I’m here for me, and not just for everybody else’s enjoyment.”
Released in September last year, Scarlet followed 2021’s hit-spawning Planet Her. It reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and No. 2 on the Top Rap Albums chart.
While speaking to the “First Class” rapper, Doja also opened up about why she meticulously vets who she does and doesn’t follow on social media. “I think that as people, we are not ready, or not fully prepared, or fully evolved, as far as the Internet,” the Grammy winner said. “So when we see things on the Internet, there’s things that we think we’re in control of, that we’re not in control of. And when we see people having a good time, but we’re bed rotting, not having the best day, and we scroll and see something that’s not an artistic expression, but somebody doing something we wish we were doing, I think that we don’t take into account what that does to our brains.”
“I know that I just shouldn’t follow people who aren’t going to be creative, because that’s more mentally stimulating to me in a positive way, to follow people who are creating something new,” she continued. “It’s a safe haven for me as opposed to a place where I am watching people either pretend to be happy or genuinely be happy. I don’t want to use my phone in order to witness people’s happiness which I’d rather experience in reality.”
