I first came across Dojacat while living in Miami. Caligula’s Playground itself wasn’t my scene ( except Art Basel which was always vivid because art is my religion ). There was little intellectually to tap into in the MIA, except the art weirdos and geezer punks who came my way at the gallery. They had character, intellect, and style; diametrically opposed to the pool parties, trap rap glam, and hyperfemme kiki landscape of the city.
At the time, I was working two jobs: as an admin for an art gallery and as a content writer. I had another side hustle managing Airbnb in a house I shared with two young millennials and two pit bulls. During my time off, I would chill at the beach with dogs, write, or watch make-up tutorials which included the vintage make-up artists like Mary Greenwell and Lisa Eldridge. I also liked Vogue snippets featuring contemporary pop stars I had never heard of.
I had hit 50 by the time I came to Miami. I’ve never been a benchmark person - by this age I'll do this and by that age I’ll have that. My first consideration is to live an interesting, non-linear life and that comes from being an artist, not necessarily a goal-oriented one. Fuck racist America and fuck capitalism. I’ll be the black chick in Tikal climbing the Temple of the Jaguar, fighting an opponent in Thunderdome at Burning Man ( that was awesome and I got my ass kicked in two rounds ).
I also love experimenting with make-up. In my teens I was punk and that involved kohl black eyes. I studied Siouxie Sioux’s make-up and mimicked that. In the 90s I was platinum with a brick read lip. By the early 2ks, buffalo souljah dread.
At the time, Dojacat was in her early 20s with long pink hair. What struck me is that she looked a bit like a younger version of myself ( with freckles even! ). The colours that work for her skin tone would work for mine. Let’s check it out!
She was charming and had some useful tips. Aesthetically different because we’re a generation apart, I appreciated her pop vamp mixed with soul. After that I checked out a few of her music videos. A year after that she did a collaboration with the hood womanist City Girls called Pussy Talk. That was a big hit in Miami ( where the City Girls are from ). Later I would learn that Pussy Talk was also a hit in Europe.
I knew Dojacat was out there, but with young, modern artists I tend to be selective. I’m drawn to those who circumvent the autotunes antics unless they're performative and conceptual like Tyler the Creator or Stromae. I liked a few conceptual Grimes videos, but she sounds like a cartoon robot. There’s a distinction between being an artist or being a camp pop star. Bjork is an artist. Britney was camp. Dojacat started camp, then in one moment she became an artist.
It happened with a Roberto Cavalli dress she wore to an event and it was stunning. Drop dead, glamour stunning. I have a propensity for fashion and fashion history ( hello, art school!) and that dress with its mix of pop culture in the moto jacket bodice and showgirl with a flowing skirt of green feathers was bananas. I knew it was inspired by Thierry Mugler's 90s design. In that moment Dojacat was adventurous, grown, and dressed. Style itself is a hard thing to achieve; that comes from fearless character. Anyone can follow the copy cat trends, not everyone is brave enough to circumvent them.
I think ours must be the last rock n roll generation left alive. I was baffled as social media turned into wabbit season; young naked women in wabbit ears, tiny clothes, and make-up inspired by either anime or strip culture. The same girls nattered on with empowerment propaganda while pandering to the male gaze of strangers. This was a contradiction to me.
For young black women, Dojacat flipped the wabbit season script by putting well-tailored and chic clothes on.
From Dojacat’s Cavalli collaboration, she ditched the crop tops and began a period of maturity and style evolution. She collaborated with haute couture and avant garde designers I like. On IG she would play with her face and form - vacillating between beautiful or ugly, femme or butch, creating different characters and iterations of herself. The black girl Bowie of her generation.
Recently, after expressing my adoration of her, a friend showed me an photo of Dojacat with a shaved head.
‘ Yesss!’ I said excitedly. ‘ She’s challenging the norm.’
‘ I knew you’d like that’ Jamaica said. ‘ So unattractive.’
‘ She’s not doing it to be attractive to you or anyone else.’ I said.
In another IG post, Dojacat wore black lipstick and a t-shirt that said ' I’d rather be eating ass'. I cracked up. Some of her peers and fans didn’t appreciate her image or sarcasm.
Comment: ‘ Why would you want to look like that?’
Why not? I replied. Imagine doing nothing that panders to the male gaze and not using the word ‘hot’ in one’s vocabulary unless referring to tea or french fries.
Then - boom! Doja was photographed, front row between two Gen X queens - Janet and Erykah at a fashion show in Paris. Black folks started referring to them as the Three Black Witches and the image went viral.
That was DOPE to me. People do not get seated in the front row in Paris if you’re a twerking pop princess in tiny clothes. Nope. You get a seat there if you have style and character that others find compelling.
This was also meaningful because in this moment black and brown beauty, across generations, was being celebrated, as it should. And the colored girls sing, doo de doo de doo...
It’s cool to see Dojacat’s kind of creativity and weirdo black beauty have an impact on both the culture and the mainstream. When I was young, the beauty standard was always white. We had to look to ourselves and our peers. Every tip and secret was analog and shared by word of mouth then; inspiration from the pages from i-D, Interview, and Paper magazines. By the early 2ks, the Kardashian clown circus ushered in a new beauty aesthetic that was ethnically ambiguous - a rip off of the black girl body. It’s everywhere now and the mainstream, who don’t naturally or genetically match such a form, are either manipulating themselves to as close a proximity of it or resent it. It is so pervasive, in Miami I saw girls in their 20s and 30s with lip fillers and Dominican implants. Dojacat works with what creation gave her.
When someone tells me Dojacat’s weirdness or, as one homie put it, ‘art shock’ black beauty reminds them of me, I give the happy clap for the weird sisters and kiki drags of today. The Polystyrenes, Paulines, and Graces of a new generation.
Now my selektah! Can you feel the vibe?
No comments:
Post a Comment