Doja Cat Gets Demonic for a Standout Performance at the 2023 VMAs

Doja Cat’s performance at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards was one we won’t forget any time soon.

Already known for her over-the-top performances—see the 2021 Grammys and her incredible Coachella set in 2022—the superstar rapper set the bar even higher on Tuesday night at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. For the night, Doja Cat performed the three lead singles from her upcoming album, Scarlet: “Attention,” “Paint the Town Red,” and “Demons.” She opened her set dressed as a sexy librarian of sorts, surrounded by a crew of fake-blood-drenched demon dancers as she commanded the stage.

Doja Cat has been teasing the release of her new album in recent weeks; it comes out September 22. The rapper is known for her concept albums, and Scarlet so far has a decidedly darker tone, at least visually, than her previous promotional rollouts, for 2019’s Hot Pink and 2021’s Planet Her. There’s been a lot of blood, tarantulas, devil cosplay, and Christina Ricci music-video cameos.

“This new album is more introspective, but I’m not leaning so hard into that to where it becomes boring. So I want to give stories and bops. It’s a nice mixture of both. I think this project is a really fun canvas for me to play with my rap skills and talk about what’s going on in my life,” the star told Harper’s Bazaar for the September 2023 Icons issue. “But I’m not abandoning who I was and what I know about pop and singing and that aspect of music.”

Culture Editor

Bianca Betancourt is the culture editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com, where she covers all things film, TV, music, and more. When she's not writing, she loves impulsively baking a batch of cookies, re-listening to the same early-2000s pop playlist, and stalking Mariah Carey's Twitter feed.