Image via Pepsi/Doja Cat
If Doja Cat’s performer-host-nominee showcase at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday night didn’t make it clear enough, she is always moving.
When we connect on Zoom just days before her hosting gig at the VMAs, during another busy rehearsal week, Doja explains that she’s just woken up. She’s alert, though, and with all that she’s been balancing as of late, she’s laser-focused on bringing her whole vision, as it ties into her third studio album Planet Her, to life.
Outside of hosting this year’s show (where she pulled off some of the night’s most memorable looks and brought home two awards for both Best Art Direction and Best Collaboration), performing what she says was her biggest festival set to date only a week before, and riding the high of her June album, the chart-topping artist has added yet another accolade to her rolodex of Planet Her-era milestones: Doja is now a musical face of Pepsi.
Appearing in the company’s latest commercial for the Pepsi-Cola Soda Shop, featuring her own refreshing reimagination of Grease’s “You’re The One That I Want,” Doja has now become a piece of the company’s storied musical lineage. Michael Jackson did it. Britney Spears did it. Beyoncé did it. And now, Doja Cat is letting Pepsi into her atmosphere.
“It’s very hard to process at first, and I feel like my success has been very slow,” Doja tells Complex. “And to see things happen this way—the fact that I got Pepsi just really solidified something—but it’s hard to see that sometimes. Because I’m constantly on the road and constantly working, you don’t really get a chance to realize. I mean, some people ask you, like, ‘Are you feeling it yet? Has it hit you?’ And it’s like, sure, but I’m just too busy to really get in my head about everything. But it’s a really beautiful opportunity. I’m so happy to have been offered this, and just looking at all the people who’ve done it before. I’m not that, but you know, I’m told that.”
As she continues her remarkable Planet Her run of Hot 100 successes, television appearances, and nostalgic soda-sipping, Doja took some time to explain to Complex what her latest partnership means to her. She also spoke about the importance of making things a little “weird,” the lessons she’s learned from her latest album, and why the next planet she conquers might just be in the galaxy of acting.
Image via Getty/John Shearer
I’m so happy to be speaking with you today, not just because it’s a major week for you, but because of the importance of having a musical partnership with Pepsi. Do you remember your initial reaction to this opportunity?
It was very cool to get a call like this, because I feel like it was not full circle—but just a really monumental thing, considering all the people I looked up to when I was younger who were able to do this. And yeah, I mean, it felt crazy. It felt very good.
Mentioning being so busy, you just played Made in America. Was that the largest crowd that you’ve performed for so far?
It could have been. It makes sense if it is, considering COVID and whatnot, and just the kind of incline I’ve been on since the beginning of that.
I was watching videos on Twitter and the crowd feedback was tremendous. Do moments like that put it all into perspective for you?
Absolutely. When I’m on stage, and that’s happening, it’s amazing to see all the people and hear how loud it is. But going to listen to everything after, and watching the performance after, being able to hear the crowd outside of the performance realm, it’s crazy. I just feel happy. And I’m happy people enjoy it. Fun fact, there’s a thing that Tidal likes to do, because a lot of the performances have crazy crowds, where the audio needs to be regulated. And they turn down the sound of the crowd and kind of up the vocals in the music. And you can’t really hear the crowd in the performance video. It was so loud that night that it fed through the mic more than it normally does. So you could still hear the crowd, considering that something Tidal does is turn down the crowd, and the screaming and whatnot. It was really funny to find out.
This weekend is monumental, too. You’ve locked in six nominations at this year’s VMAs, for four different songs and one award as a solo artist. How does it feel to know that all these different sides to Planet Her are being recognized in this capacity?
I’m just appreciative of all that my fans have done for me. And I know that none of this would be [possible] if they weren’t there supporting me. So it feels good to know that someone enjoys what I’m doing, that people enjoy what I’m doing, to the point of [being nominated for] this type of award. Just being nominated is good enough for me. I don’t feel like I really need a trophy. I feel like this is my trophy. I mean, having people support me is sort of a trophy in its own kind of corny, poetic way.
You recently mentioned in your chat with Missy Elliott that you wanted Planet Her to have a “collage of sounds.” A lot of albums come together when all the tracks follow a specific sound, but what criteria did it take for a song to be worthy of being on Planet Her?
I feel like I’m kind of not destined—or, maybe a little cursed. I tend to do this on every album, where I do something different with every song. And I really do appreciate consistency as an artist. Those are the albums that I play the most in my own personal life. I’m able to kind of just listen to things that sound very consistent. I can’t really play albums that switch up too much, which is kind of strange. You’d think that I’d be making albums that way if that’s my favorite thing. But I think I just need to really be happy about what I’m making, and sometimes that means I have to change my entire direction in the studio when I’m making each song individually. Because I get very bored very quickly, I think. In the future, I’m going to try more to kind of shoot for more conceptual things that feel consistent, but I don’t know. As of now, and in the past, I’ve just never really felt like I wanted to follow anything.
You also mentioned something about the album being a little weirder. What makes a song too weird? And I’ve heard you use that word before, too. Are you glad that the word “weird” can be used in such a positive context?
I think when I say “weird,” it’s more just things that stick out like a sore thumb. So with Hot Pink, that wasn’t the issue for me. That wasn’t something I wanted to avoid. I liked it being all over the place. And I felt like it gave it a vibrant touch to the album to have those stick-out-like-sore-thumb moments. But for this album, I worked with one producer, Y2K, who has a very specific style. He’s good at classic pop, but he does add hip-hop elements into them more often than not, and I wanted to stay true to that. I worked with other producers on this project, but I wanted it to feel more sparkly and pretty and high-energy, and less like a circus. I don’t know how to really describe it. But I mean, when you listen, it’s just very clean. I wanted everything to be very clean. I had songs that maybe sounded too Prince or a little too hip-hop or something. The thing is, “Ain’t Shit” is the one stick-out record on the album. I feel like I was OK with that, because that song meant so much to my fans and meant so much to me. So that one gets a pass. But yeah, that’s kind of how I feel about the weird, weird tracks.
This year, you dabbled in acting with Dave. Are there any other mediums that you’ve yet to explore that are on your radar?
My big thing that I really want to do in the future is acting, and I don’t know how to get in there. You know, people have offered some things in the past. And it’s always been that I need four months at a time to do those things. But I don’t, because I’ll have an album coming out. During Hot Pink, that whole rollout sort of got in the way of other things. I mean, in the future, I’m definitely trying to see if I can send out my schedule for stuff like that, because I really do love improv and I’m really into the idea of getting into acting. People told me I should act, too, so I might as well try.
What do you think the positive reception of Planet Her—whether it be the awards or the crowd feedback last weekend—has taught you about what you’ve been able to do with the project?
It taught me a lot of things as far as strength. More specifically, vocal strength. Like, I’ve pushed myself for this project. And to be on stage during the songs, I felt a lot more comfortable. I definitely was out of breath at certain points. And it hurts when I watch those moments, but I’ve grown a lot, just in the physical realm as far as the vocals and dancing. These songs are made for that. The songs are made for dance. The songs are made for further expression in that way, so I’m excited to do that in the future.