Doja Cat Is the Artist Behind This Catchy Song You've Heard on TikTok (2024)

• Doja Cat, a rapper from Los Angeles, went viral on TikTok when her song, “Say So,” was used as part of a dance challenge on the video-sharing app.
• The singer has now gone from internet sensation to bona fide star with a track on the Birds of Prey soundtrack, a new tour, and a performance on Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show.
• Doja Cat also just released the groovy music video for her disco bop “Say So.”

Even if you still haven’t jumped on board the TikTok bandwagon like Reese Witherspoon, it's likely you've clicked across the memes and web stars that teenagers are obsessing over. On the app, which has more than 1.5 billion downloads, creators use music in their videos—be it for dance challenges, to set the mood, or just for fun.

The greatest success story thus far of a musician getting their due after going viral on TikTok has to be Lil Nas X. The Atlanta-born rapper took home two Grammys at this year’s award show for “Old Town Road,” a crossover cowboy-culture hit that owes its chaps to the social media platform. And you’d be hard-pressed to point us in the direction of a noggin that hasn’t bopped along to the catchy earworm. Another artist riding off into fame thanks to TikTok? Doja Cat.

A rapper whose quirk goes beyond just her moniker, Doja Cat fuses her humor and wit with her lyrics, covering topics about everything from video gaming (“Nintendhoe”) to feeling under the weather (her untitled strep throat ditty) to her now-infamous animal farm track (“Mooo!”). Her song “Say So,” however, takes itself a bit more seriously. It's a groovy, disco-inspired rap-pop gem that rose from obscurity on TikTok, then charted on Billboard and now has its own music video, which the artist released Thursday morning.

No longer just a girl with a pipe dream making music videos in her bedroom and uploading them online, Doja Cat is heading on tour with Ashnikko and Tyga, making music for Hollywood movies, and she even performed her TikTok disco bop on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Read on to learn more about Doja and how she went from internet sensation to bona fide star. And be sure to scroll to the end, where we debut her new music video for “Say So"—We wanted to save the best for last.

Amala, her debut album, was released in March 2018.

Doja Cat, born Amala Zandile Dlamini, released her debut album, Amala, in spring of 2018. And though the release dropped with barely a whisper, she would have to wait only a matter of months before her sound would reach a mainstream audience.

But no one knew who Doja Cat was until she randomly released “Mooo!”

Got virality? Doja Cat does. And it came initially with her chill novelty hit that rivaled Drake’s “In My Feelings” for song of the summer—or at the very least, song of the internet. The lyrics go a little something like this: “B*tch, I’m a cow / B*tch, I’m a cow / I’m not a cat / I don’t say meow.”

Of course, there’s a video to go with, which features the L.A. rapper in a black-and-white cow-print ensemble dancing in front of a screen projecting cattle-related imagery (read: milk, farms, and, uh, burgers).

After Doja Cat uploaded it to her Instagram Live, it went viral overnight, with Twitter wasting no time to meme the holy cow out of it. “The 50 supporters I hang with on Instagram Live that I make songs with, all were watching and laughing along about it,” she said to Complex. “I thought this was going to be an inside joke for all of us and we had no plan of it getting anywhere further than SoundCloud.”

Today, the video has more than 65 million views on YouTube. She even broke the Internet with her #MooChallenge, requesting fans send in their own cow-inspired videos.

Viral hits and a song for the Birds of Prey soundtrack followed.

After “Mooo,” “Tia Tamera” (featuring Rico Nasty) and “Juicy” (featuring Tyga) became favorites of the breakout star. But Doja is more than just a rapper of the absurd. Though her music will always include her signature lyrical word play, her projects of late are solidifying her a major player in the hip-hop space.

She even joined forces with megawatt talents including Megan Thee Stallion and Normani to record the bombastic soundtrack for the female-fronted offshoot extension of the Suicide Squad film, Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey, starring Margot Robbie, Rosie Perez, and Ali Wong. Doja Cat’s contribution was “Boss B*tch,” described by Paper magazine as a “fiery clapback at her haters.”

Her breakthrough hit, “Say So,” went viral on TikTok last fall.

A rapper who isn’t afraid to toy with her sound, Doja delivers a slinky, poppy disco-inspired track with “Say So,” off her second album, Hot Pink, which was released last November. Inspired by industry heavyweights like Nicki Minaj, Erykah Badu, and Drake, the hit was poised to climb the charts.

As we mentioned earlier, TikTok gives its users a space to get creative with music, videos, and special effects, and it’s the fastest-growing social media app right now. So when we say Doja Cat’s song went viral, what we mean is it was featured in more than nine million videos, many of which were part of the #SaySo dance challenge, choreographed by TikToker Haley Sharpe.

As for the mainstream music waves, it did debut in the Billboard Hot 100 at number 95, with another Hot Pink single, “Juicy,” charting at number 48.

Watch the just-released music video for “Say So.”

This week, the singer alerted her fans to video news via her Instagram account with a playful snap of Doja doing what appears to be her best impersonation of the groovy supermodel Twiggy. Watch the new groovy “Say So” video below.

For more stories like this, sign up for our newsletter.