Doja Cat

Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini (born October 21, 1995), known professionally as Doja Cat, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer of South African and Jewish descent.

Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini, known professionally as Doja Cat, was born on October 21, 1995, in the Tarzana neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Her mother, Deborah Elizabeth Sawyer, is a Jewish-American artist who works as a painter, clothing designer, and graphic designer. Sawyer raised Dlamini primarily as a single parent after her relationship with Dlamini's father ended shortly after her birth.

Dlamini's early years involved frequent moves shaped by her mother's artistic and alternative lifestyle. Following a brief period in Rye, New York, the family relocated to the Sai Anantam Ashram in Santa Monica, California, where they lived for a time amid Sawyer's involvement in spiritual communities. By age eight or so, they settled in California's Inland Empire desert areas, including Yucaipa and San Bernardino County, in a modest, creative household influenced by Sawyer's interests in R&B music, visual arts, and unconventional living—periods that Dlamini has recalled as financially challenging yet formative for her artistic development. She has credited her mother's support and exposure to diverse cultural elements, including Jewish heritage from Sawyer and indirect Zulu influences via family stories, for shaping her multicultural identity, though she emphasized being raised predominantly in her mother's white American environment.

Doja Cat, born Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini on October 21, 1995, is the daughter of Deborah Elizabeth Sawyer, a white Jewish American graphic designer and painter, and Dumisani Dlamini, a Black South African actor known for his role in the 1992 film Sarafina!. Her parents married but separated shortly after her birth, after which Sawyer raised Doja primarily in Los Angeles, California, fostering her early interest in art and music through homeschooling and exposure to creative environments. Sawyer filed for divorce from Dlamini on March 21, 2022, citing irreconcilable differences in Los Angeles County court documents, though the couple had long been separated.