Doja Cat – “Demons”

Doja Cat is getting ready to release her new album Scarlet, and the saga of its changing cover art has been pretty funny. Doja already released the early singles “Attention” and “Paint The Town Red,” and both of them are really good. When she announced her album release a few days ago, Doja teased a horror-movie video for another single called “Demons.” Today, that song is out.

I’ve seen a few people online claiming that “Demons” is basically a Baby Keem song, and they’re not exactly wrong. Producer d.a. got that dope samples a shrill shriek of strings, transforming it into something choppy and brittle, while Doja Cat raps in a squeaky, affected toddler voice. These are the sorts of things that Baby Keem would do. But Doja’s got a whole lot more star quality than Keem, and she really makes the approach work. She gets off some good lines, too. I like this one: “We are enemies! We are fooooes! Who are you? And what are thoooose? You are grooooss! Percocet got you playing with your noooose!”

For all of the Scarlet videos, Doja Cat has been playing around with satanic imagery, which is fun. Doja co-directed the “Demons” clip with Christian Breslauer, and she plays a devil-goblin thing who torments Christina Ricci. The video really piles on the horror-movie references. It feels a little early to go full spooky-season like this, but I’m on board. Check it out below.

Scarlet is out 9/22 on Kemosabe/RCA.