Doja Cat's Dallas Concert Was Daring, Devilish and 'Dark-Sided'

On paper, Doja Cat, who brought her Scarlet Tour to the American Airlines Center on Thursday, is everything people think they want a pop star to be.

She’s a singer, songwriter and rapper whose music transcends genre. She’s a mesmerizing performer, and her live shows are always a true spectacle. She has a distinct sense of humor that’s at the core of all of her work.

Most important, in the eyes of modern music listeners, she’s never come across as being anything but her authentic self. Realness is a virtue in this day and age, and if your public gets a sense that what you have to offer is in any way contrived, it’s over. You’ll be labeled an “industry plant,” or worse: cringe.

For these fans who value authenticity above all else, Doja Cat has been something of a revelation.

First and foremost, above all the aforementioned attributes, Doja Cat is a troll. She’s a terminally online agent of chaos with an affinity for bizarre stunts. Sometimes these bits are hilarious and make her more iconic in the eyes of her fans. Her breakout single, “MOOO!,” was a lo-fi chillhop track about being a cow. It was ridiculously quotable, containing lyrics like “got milk, bitch? / got beef?” In 2020, she randomly went live on Instagram to recite Roddy Ricch’s “The Box” with a Shakespearean accent while wearing chainmail armor.

Most of the times she’s trending, however, it’s safe to assume it’s not for a good reason. A comprehensive list of Doja Cat controversies would be several thousand words long, but the most notable offenses include her frequent use of racial and homophobic slurs, collaborating with alleged abuser Dr. Luke, downplaying COVID-19, beefing with one of the Stranger Things kids and fraternizing with alt-right influencers.

Her fans will justify her behavior by insisting that most of these are jokes and she’s just messing with everyone. No one else is laughing.

Those of her supporters who could apparently look past all of that put their foot down only when she started brazenly antagonizing them. Earlier this year, Doja took to Twitter to rant about her hit pop songs like “Say So” being “cash grabs” and called her fans stupid for enjoying them. She then gave fledgling social media app Threads its first proper scandal by calling out fan accounts dedicated to her and telling them to “get a job.” (Her Threads account has since been deleted.)
Going into her Dallas show, we couldn’t help but wonder if this erratic behavior would carry over into her performance.

The show began with a stellar opening set from up-and-coming rapper Doechii. Had you walked into the show off the street and not known any better, you would’ve easily believed she was the night’s headliner. She came prepared with her own fairly elaborate setup and loyal fans who were there for her as much as they were for Doja Cat. We look forward to her own headlining tour hitting an arena near us very soon.

After Doechii finished hyping up the crowd, the anticipation was through the roof for Doja Cat’s performance. While no official start time was given, many expected that she would go on between 8:30 p.m and 9 p.m.

At 9:43 p.m., as the crowd was trying for the third time to coax her onstage by chanting her name, we started to think our fears of this whole show being a disaster might come true.

Doja Cat’s set finally began at 9:53 p.m. She later acknowledged that she was over an hour late and apologized, citing a stomach bug as the cause of the holdup. She also said that even though she still wasn’t feeling well, she appreciated the love she felt from the audience.

“If I shit myself on stage tonight, I know that I did OK,” she joked. (Again, she keeps it uncomfortably real.)

With the tardiness and poop jokes out of the way, Doja Cat didn’t miss a single beat for the rest of the night. Every other aspect of the show was tight, flawless and wildly entertaining.

We realize everything we’ve already said is an insane way to set up a glowing review. But here’s the thing: We are allowed to be alarmed by some of her antics and also believe she’s a once-in-a-generation pop auteur. She contains multitudes, and so do we.

The Scarlet Tour is in support of her most recent album of the same name, and many of the record’s darker elements are incorporated into the show. It began with Doja Cat lurking onto an empty stage covered in an ankle-length red lace veil. She then threw herself into a hole in the stage and re-emerged moments later, launching into fan-favorite Scarlet cut “Demons.”

This section of the show, the first of five acts, dealt heavily with dark, demonic imagery. Doja Cat, ever the meme lord, can’t help but sprinkle in some niche internet humor. She used audio from the viral “God Warrior” episode of Trading Spouses in which a woman hysterically accuses someone of being “dark-sided” and “not a Christian.” This was presumably aimed at evangelical Christians who thought her single “Paint the Town Red,” in which she sarcastically refers to herself as a devil, was actually demonic. She has never refuted these accusations, just mocked them.

The show would go on to draw upon imagery from all four of her albums in a way that could best be described as cinematic. Doja Cat has more than just some hits. She has a vision. She has an awareness of how her show should be viewed from all angles, to the audience and the cameras.

Several moments appeared to be posed with the giant LED screens in mind. During “Attention,” her backup dancers were arranged in a line in front of the camera with their arms in a circle above their head. On the lyric “look at me, look at me / you looking?” she looked down the tunnel of arms and into the barrel of the lens. Ironically, this was a moment that only worked if you weren’t looking directly at her.
The visuals on the screen were overlaid with facial recognition squares, broken glass and more memes. While it’s difficult to say what exactly the motivation is behind some of Doja Cat’s online antics, it’s clear she has some level of self-awareness. The artist has long been open about the fact that she grew up online and that what she was exposed to at a young age shaped her worldview.

Circling back to her ongoing controversies, much of the press surrounding the war she waged on her social media followers had to do with her losing fans. Stan accounts were deleted and she lost hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram. Going off social media alone, this appeared to a career killing outburst.

But as most of us know, social media isn't real life. Whatever’s happening on Instagram was miles away from her Dallas show, which was packed with emphatic, devoted fans who seemed blissfully ignorant of the possibility that their idol might hate them. People showed up in full costumes, ranging from cow print in honor of “MOOO!” to devil horns and fake blood for “Paint the Town Red.” She clearly still has fans, and they love her unconditionally.

We may never know what the hell Doja Cat is doing. We just know that, somehow, it’s working.