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Doja Cat Says Her Next Album Will Have a 'More Masculine Direction'
After conquering the world of pop, Doja Cat is trying something “more masculine.”
As she gears up for the next era of her career, the Grammy-winning superstar opens up about her new sound. In an interview with Variety, Doja reveals that her next album won’t favor the pop stylings of her last project, 2021’s Planet Her.
“I know that I’ve done a lot of pink and soft things, a lot of pop and glittery sounds,” she said, “but for this next era, I’m going in a more masculine direction.”
As previously reported, the project is leaning more into her first love, rap. The finished product will be a mixture of hip-hop with some R&B. “I just go straight to R&B if I’m alone,” she said.
Doja, who grew up listening to artists like Busta Rhymes and Lauryn Hill, has been rapping since she was young. “When I was little, that’s kind of all I listened to,” she told ELLE last year. “I’ve rapped since the beginning, and I really couldn’t even sing that well to begin with-I got a lot better.”
While there is no release date yet, she does guarantee it will drop sometime this year.
“I have been getting songs and things sent to me…. Oh f**k, I wish I could tell people!” she previously said. “There’s some really cool stuff that I got sent from friends. They’re all working on beats, and I’m giving them notes and they know what I want, so I’m excited.”
She has also been inspired by punk music, naming British post-punk group Idles as her favorite band of last year. However, she may save the punk sounds for another project because it “does not mesh.”
“I want to explore punk. But not pop-punk,” she said. “I feel like we have enough pop-punk artists right now. And if there needs to be more, then let there be more, but I don’t think I’m the one to do it. I want to explore more of a raw, unfiltered, hardcore punk sort of thing. It’s just something that I’m doing for my own personal fun — getting some drummers and guitarists together. And I don’t even know if that’s gonna make it out there.”