Despite — or maybe because of — her willingness to wage war on her public, Doja Cat has remained a fixture on the Hot 100 chart, winning a 2022 best pop duo Grammy for "Kiss Me More" featuring SZA. Of late, Doja Cat has also been badmouthing her back catalog, calling her previous three albums transactional "cash grabs," and labeling her own recorded rap verses "mid and corny." Her willingness to self-cannibalize her catalog seems more like a clever way to promote her latest product than genuine self-sabotage. Just last year, Doja livestreamed her process of producing beats in the studio: it was a nifty way to share her creativity with fans, but also, it seems, to defend her artistic merit against naysayers.

Scarlet largely makes sense as Doja Cat's creative resynthesis of all her swirling drama and toxicity. "I let all that get to my head," she confess-raps in Scarlet's "Paint the Town Red." The album often feels like she's thinking out loud, working out her issues in real time. For instance, last December, Doja Cat logged on to Instagram Live while having an emotional freakout over the discovery of a spider in her house. Two twin spiders appear on Scarlet's album cover, meant to signify Doja Cat's overcoming of fear — and to send a message that she no longer cares about satisfying her fans. Scarlet's lead single, the aptly-titled "Attention," is hypnotic, '90s trip-hop (think Massive Attack) meets 2000s, alt hip-hop (think Black Star). The sound is a sharp left turn away from Doja's Cat more melodic, neo-disco and Afrobeat hits — sexy, ominous and menacing. It's way closer to the '90s indie pugilism of Jean Grae than the 2020s bubbliness of her Hot 100 chart mates like Dua Lipa and Lizzo. It's also an attempt to clapback against trolls who trashed her looks and diminished her as a second-rate Nicki Minaj. "Lost a lil' weight, but I ain't never lost a tushy," she raps, later telling fans who say she's "ugly" that she "ain't sad you won't f*** with me."

The album title Scarlet evokes histories of biblical harlots and put-upon sex workers, not to mention literary characters like Hester Prynne and Wanda Maximoff "The Scarlet Witch" from Marvel comics and franchises. "I'm yellin' 666" Doja Cat blurts out in her abrasive screed "FTG (F*** the Girls)." In "Paint the Town Red," the occult references are everywhere: "I'm a demon, Lord," she says; then there's the self-aware hook "Mm, she the devil / She a bad lil' b****, she a rebel." The video, incorporating paintings by Doja Cat herself, features everything from red pentagrams to images of the singer cozying up to the Grim Reaper. The title of Scarlet's third, anthemic single "Demons," speaks for itself; in the video she wears horns and long, claw-like fingernails. Doja Cat's been cosplaying her own Scarlet alter ego — appearing in promo materials half naked, slathered from head to toe in red paint that doubles for blood. The look is giving equal parts Sissy Spacek in Brian De Palma's Carrie, South Park's Lucifer and Dianne Ladd's red lipstick smeared, psycho mom in David Lynch's Wild at Heart.

Doja Cat is trend-chasing, too, with these Satanic references: occult images in pop have become somewhat de rigueur after Lil Nas X climbed the charts pole dancing with Lucifer in the video for 2021's "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)," while Sam Smith and Kim Petras followed suit with their video for 2022's chart-topper "Unholy." Decades after the "Satanic Panic" when political pundits like Tipper Gore fought to censor pop music by way of the Parents Music Resource Center, Satanism feels like one of the last taboos left for pop provocateurs in an era when even your grandma might have an OnlyFans account. Satanic pop also carries an even more transgressive purpose in 2023: it rankles and pushes back against the evangelical Christian right at a time in which politicians and lawmakers are allowing the church and state to do the horizontal mambo instead of upholding their constitutionally mandated separation. With the devil-may-care visuals of Scarlet, Doja Cat wants to become the toxic monster many in the political establishment likely already think she is.

But a number of tracks on Scarlet are simply Doja Cat being Doja Cat: egocentric, flossing and boasting in a defensive way. "I don't shop anymore because I get free clothes / You can have a trophy, I no longer need those," she says on the addictive, brazenly-titled rumpshaker "Wet Vagina." The sensual "Can't Wait" has jazz elements and a sampled beat cribbed from "Impeach the President." Hazy, intoxicating tracks like "Gun" and "Shutcho" fall somewhere between vibey neo-soul and blunted chillwave, while "Agora Hills" — named after the California neighborhood in which Doja spent part of her childhood — is a quilted, romantic R&B sleeper built on a sample of Troop's "All I Do Is Think of You" that reveals her softie side; it's her "Plastic Off the Sofa" moment.

The album's production lurches between boom-bap hip-hop, booty-shaking trap, gauzy R&B and more, never resting in one style or the other. Doja Cat co-directs some of her music videos, designs her own artwork, and has a writing credit on every Scarlet song, but her controversial collaborator Dr. Luke (she's signed to his label and he had a hand in co-writing some of her biggest past hits) is nowhere to be found. Not everything on Scarlet sticks — a few of the tracks fail to bring anything new to the table; and at just about an hour in length, some judicious editing might have been in order. On the other hand, not getting it just right may be Doja Cat's ultimate anti-pop rejection of the meticulous, my-album-has-no-filler ethos associated with perfectionist pop stars from Michael Jackson to Beyoncé.

Still, Scarlet gives Doja Cat ample opportunity to showcase her wicked vocal skills. "I focus most on my craft / I stay on top of my s*** but y'all done got me convinced / That I'm the popularist / That's why you watchin my moves," she says on "F*** the Girls (FTG)." On "Ouchies," Doja Cat's staccato delivery resembles Roxanne Shanté's hypersyllabic flow. And on "Paint the Town Red," Doja Cat deploys monorhyme, each line ending on a consistent syllable stress: "My illness don't come with no remedy / I am so much fun without Hennessy / They just want my love and my energy / You can't talk no s*** without penalties / Bitch, I'm in yo' s*** if you send for me." Like her main artistic influence Nicki Minaj, Doja Cat's lyricism is precise and blunt, and she gravitates to droll, ribald humor. Scarlet arrives in a golden era for women in hip-hop, but not every artist coming up these days has the same ability to rap skillfully. In contrast, Doja Cat's artistry is rooted in her cosmopolitan listening habits — in making Scarlet, she claims to have been listening to everything from Machine Girl and Orbital, to the Beastie Boys and Cocteau Twins.