Photo by Michael Creagh
Comparing love to drugs is nothing new in songwriting but almost no one is as good at it as Roxy Music. And when most people try to approximate their masterful conceit, they end up coming off like a total cliche. But Doja Cat, an 18 year-old spitfire from Los Angeles, has managed to take the metaphor into new sonic territory, putting her own hazy, slinky neo-soul stamp on it. Her addictive song “So High” first arrived with a trippy visual feast Miley Cyrus wishes she would have thought of — and because the track is so good, Doja is serving up yet another video for it.
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This time she went with a retro soul approach that’s not only just as much of an ear worm, it shows how flexible Doja is as an artist. In the video for her new rendition, premiering below, the smoky-voiced chantreuse takes the mic alongside two violinists — with perfectly coiffed hairdos — and a pianist. No one has ever looked this classy while sing-rapping about blunts.
“‘So High’ was a song that I ended up sometimes playing acoustically during live performances,” she tells Noisey. “I really dug hearing how the melody could be highlighted and we decided why not get a live acoustic version on film. I felt very lucky that the Chargaux girls were in Los Angeles to lay it down. We did one take for the audio, which kept it raw, and stayed true to the natural energy we intended to capture. ”
Watch her slay the love-drug trope below, and be sure to check out her Purrr! EP here.
