Doja Cat took to social media in recent days to address the backlash that she received for one of her old songs. The singer and rapper also responded to talk that she was joking with white supremacists on the site TinyChat.
Calls for Doja to be canceled started the week of May 18 when video snippets of her speaking on the site surfaced. Doja, who is of mixed race, can be seen rolling around in bed during the clip, uttering sexually explicit words and saying the N-Word, which sparked laughter.
The video caused many to call Doja out for her 2015 song “Dindu Nuffin.” The title comes from a term used by the alt-right against Black people who’ve said they’ve been victims of police brutality.
Some on Twitter said the song was mocking the death of Sandra Bland, a Black woman who died in 2015 while in police custody three days after being arrested in a traffic stop. Hashtags like #DojaCatIsOverParty began trending on Twitter after the song and chatroom video were discussed online.
“I want to address what’s been happening on Twitter,” read Doja’s message, posted to Instagram on Sunday, May 24. “I’ve used public chat rooms to socialize since I was a child. I shouldn’t have been on some of those chat room sites, but I personally have never been involved in any racist conversations. I’m sorry to everyone I offended.”
Her statement continued, “I’m a Black woman. Half of my family is Black from South Africa and I’m very proud of where I come from.”
Doja then addressed the controversy on Instagram Live the following day and talked about “Dindu Nuffin” having nothing to do with police brutality or Bland. But she admitted that using the term for a song title was a bad idea.
“The term that I used in the song is one that I learned that day,” she explained. “So people were calling me left and right, left and right, and I used it in a song, and it was to kind of take back and f—–g just say f–k you to those people … That song is in zero ways in no way connected to police brutality or Sandra Bland.”
Doja added, “To see something like that. To see a song, my song, that I made connected to an innocent Black woman’s death is one of the most awful rumors that I’ve ever encountered.”
Twitter users found old footage of Doja calling Beyoncé “Beyonkey” as well, something else she addressed.
“Beyoncé is the cream of the f——g crop,” said Doja. “Beyoncé is the reason why I believe that I can be who I am. Beyoncé is one of the driving forces of who I am in my career. Beyoncé is undeniably talented, and every f——g time anyone has ever came for Beyoncé, I was there.”
The controversy surrounding Doja Cat comes shortly after her “Say So” remix went number one on the Hot 100 charts.
