Streets

"Streets" is the ninth track and final single from Doja Cat's second studio album, Hot Pink. It was released through Kemosabe Records and RCA Records on February 16, 2021.

Background

Doja Cat released her debut studio album Amala in March 2018, four years after the viral success of her first single, "So High".^[1][2] The album received little media coverage. Meanwhile, in August of the same year, she self-published a music video for "MOOO!", a novelty song that incorporated elements of Generation Z humor and meme culture.^[3] Achieving unanticipated popularity on several social media platforms, it bolstered Doja Cat's rise to mainstream fame. This prompted her to issue and promote a deluxe edition of Amala. She included "MOOO!" in its tracklist, along with the single "Tia Tamera", featuring the rapper Rico Nasty, as well as the song "Juicy".^[4]

A remix of "Juicy", with a guest appearance from the rapper Tyga, served as the lead single for Doja Cat's next album, Hot Pink (2019). Commercially successful, the single became her first to reach the US Billboard Hot 100. Furthermore, it went viral on the video-hosting application TikTok, where several dance challenge clips used it as background music.^[5] During 2019, Doja Cat released three more singles in promotion of Hot Pink: "Bottom Bitch", "Rules", and "Cyber Sex". By September 2021, "Rules" and "Cyber Sex" had appeared in 64,200 and 171,400 TikTok videos, respectively.^[6][7]

TikTok's users contributed to the popularity of two more tracks from Hot Pink. One of these is "Say So", which topped the Billboard Hot 100 and earned Doja Cat her first number one on the chart. The other song, "Like That", received a platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).^[8] Pitchfork writer Cat Zhang believed that the TikTok-driven successes of "Say So" and "Like That" demonstrated that Doja Cat had an "unimpeachable [...] reign" over the application. Aliya Chaudhry of Slate argued that TikTok users' propensity of making songs go viral, often due to an Internet challenge, factored into solidifying Doja Cat's status as a household name.^[9]

Production and songwriting

Doja Cat, David Sprecher, and Lydia Asrat wrote the original version of "Streets" with the track's producers Dominique and Darius Logan, brothers who comprise a band called Blaq Tuxedo.^[10] It incorporates a sample from a 2003 song entitled "Streets Is Callin'", performed by R&B band B2K for the soundtrack to the film You Got Served (2004).^[11] The song was written by Theron Feemster, Christopher Jefferies, and Demarie Sheki. Because of the sampling, the three received writing credits for "Streets". "Streets" is an R&B ballad that contains elements of trap. It has a duration of 3 minutes and 46 seconds, and has been described as "sultry", "melanchol[ic]", and "soulful".^[12] Jade Gomez of Paste called the song's vocal performance an immersive blend between a "wispy" singing voice and a "raspy" rap delivery.^[13] AllMusic reviewer Fred Thomas described this as a transition from "breathy" verses into "unexpected scattershot rhymes". With regards to the composition in "Streets", Thomas explained that it was a slow-paced track, complete with "dark harmonies, trap hi-hats, and psychedelic textures".^[14] In the lyrics, Doja Cat admits that she cannot imagine herself without her ex-partner after their breakup and proceeds to, in the views of Billboard editor Jason Lipshutz, demonstrate her emotional depth: "I can't sleep no more/ In my head, we belong/ And I can't be without you /Why can't I find no one like you?".^[15]

Lyrics

Silhouette Challenge

Hot Pink, the album in which "Streets" appears, was released on November 7, 2019.^[16][17] Initially, the song was not intended to be sent to radio stations as a single. Although the senior staff in RCA Records considered it a highlight of the album, they did not think "Streets" would gain a similar level of recognition as "Say So", "Like That", or "Juicy". Speaking on behalf of the label in an interview with Billboard, the chief operating officer John Fleckenstein thought that he and the others had "moved on" from Hot Pink with the amount of singles the album produced.

In the beginning of 2021, around 15 months after its initial release, the track experienced a surge in popularity on TikTok.^[18] There, user Giulia Di Nicolantonio created a mashup of "Streets" and the 1959 Paul Anka's song "Put Your Head on My Shoulder". The mashup became the soundtrack for the "Silhouette Challenge", an online video trend.^[19] Participants of the challenge would pose and dance to the rhythm of the two songs; Anka's part played first. Once "Put Your Head on My Shoulder" ended and the beat dropped to signal the beginning of "Streets", TikTok users would then show themselves covered in red lighting, backlit to give the impression of a silhouette.^[20][21]

The Silhouette Challenge went viral. Consequently, it helped to propel "Streets" up the Billboard Hot 100 and Spotify Top 200 charts. Within one month, the mashup had appeared in over 300,000 videos on TikTok, and clips that contained the hashtag "Silhouette" had been viewed around 526 million times.^[22] Recording artists who took part in the trend include Cardi B, Lizzo, and Chloe Bailey from Chloe x Halle.^[23][24]

Critical reception

Consequence of Sound's Lucy Shanker, in a review of Hot Pink, argued that "Streets" presents Doja Cat "in her most serious form". For Lakin Starling of Pitchfork, the track fell under the "ultra-soft and chill" side of the album. Shanker hailed "Streets" as one of Hot Pink's best songs and cited how it demonstrated Doja Cat's musical versatility: "[in the previous songs, she] sounds great, but just as you settle into hearing her in that manner, she switches it up again." Starling shared a similar opinion about this versatility, but wrote that Doja Cat ran the risk of having listeners mistake her for another artist due to Hot Pink's use of several musical styles. Nonetheless, Starling praised Doja Cat's slow and raspy voice which was present in tracks like "Streets", believing that such vocal performances constituted one of the album's clearest.

In an analysis of "Streets", Aaron Williams of Uproxx opined that Doja Cat's reaction to its growing popularity was an example of how to properly handle fame online. He wrote that she can adapt to her audience's interests and activities, consciously capitalizing on the Internet trends that her fans create and letting them determine which songs she should promote as new singles. Williams described this behavior as "rid[ing] the changing tides" whenever any of her old releases eventually go viral.^[25] Similarly, staff writers at Billboard believed that the track's gradual rise to fame demonstrates Doja Cat's "innate ability" to produce hit singles and prolong the commercial success of her albums, "in an era where artists are moving between records faster than ever".

Commercial performance and release

"Streets" was a sleeper hit that gradually acquired Internet-driven success.^[26] It began to gain traction on social media platforms in the early days of 2021 after three live performances of the song, released to YouTube during the previous year, sparked interest in the track.^[27]

Music video

A music video for "Streets", directed by Christian Breslauer, premiered via YouTube on March 9, 2021.^[28] Its release happened as Doja Cat was preparing to promote her then-upcoming third studio album, Planet HER. Jackson Langford of NME and Halle Kiefer of Vulture observed multiple tonally dark and "twisted" scenes present in the video,^[29] whereas Jessica McKinney of Complex used the word "sexy" to describe the scenes.^[30] Because it utilizes a combination of erotic and horror elements, Rolling Stone's Claire Shaffer summarized the music video as a "sultry [...] horror-fantasy".

The video begins with a shot of a male driver, played by Kofi Siriboe. While inside a cab on a heavily congested street, he notices Doja Cat posing as a mannequin by a shop window across the sidewalk. Similar to the TikTok mashup, the first few seconds of "Put Your Head on My Shoulder" begin to play. Upon the beat drop, Doja Cat, still in the shop window, performs the Silhouette Challenge. The lights suddenly change to a red color, and the music transitions from "Put Your Head on My Shoulder" to "Streets" as she dances to the beat, seducing the cab driver while doing so.^[31]

In the next scene, Doja Cat dances on top of a destroyed car's hood while the rain pours. A group of men, wearing white contact lenses, rise from the dead and form a crowd around her. The driver returns and approaches Doja Cat, but she ensnares and pulls him upwards using strings from a spider web. Dressed like a black widow, she climbs along the surface of a brick-wall building. On its walls lies the cab driver, trapped by the massive web that Doja Cat created.

Doja Cat is then seen on a living room couch, in a house near a nuclear testing site. She rests her head on the lap of a mannequin of what seems to be the cab driver. A bomb detonation happens nearby, which sets the living room on fire. During the video's conclusion, the driver is back inside his cab, and it is revealed that he imagined every prior event. Doja Cat is now shown as his cab's passenger.

Live performances

A live performance of "Streets" was posted to YouTube on March 5, 2020, as part of video hosting service VEVO's Lift initiative, aimed at promoting up-and-coming artists to a wider audience. In it, Doja Cat sings the track as she wades in a massive tub of milk. VEVO partnered with her for Lift to increase her visibility through live performances that made use of "distinctive settings". The video's production team incorporated milk into the set design to evoke cat imagery, which they found appropriate given Doja Cat's name and image. According to the description for the video, the milk-filled stage ended up being Lift's "most ambitious studio build to date". Lynn Sharpe, in a HotNewHipHop article published during the release, believed that the live performance marked Doja Cat's "latest step toward world domination".^[32]

On December 24, 2020, Doja Cat's YouTube Channel uploaded six performances of three different songs from Hot Pink to the platform. She created the series of videos, titled the Hot Pink Sessions, as a gesture of thanks to her fans for their support. Two of those performances were live renditions of "Streets".^[33]

After winning Best New Pop Artist at the 2021 iHeartRadio Music Awards, she performed the song again, as part of a medley that incorporated it with "Say So" and "Kiss Me More" featuring American singer SZA. The performance began with her standing in a cornfield, accompanied by backup dancers who donned gray latex alien costumes. Once the medley ended, Doja Cat was lifted off the stage while showered in rays of light, appearing to levitate towards an unidentified flying object above her.^[34][35] In 2022, she headlined for that year's Coachella festival, replacing Kanye West in the role. She included "Streets", among other songs from Hot Pink and Planet HER, in the setlist for her performance.^[36]

Track listings

• Digital download/streaming (Silhouette Remix)^[37]

1. "Streets (Silhouette Remix)" – 4:02

• Digital download/streaming (Disclosure Remix)^[38]

1. "Streets (Disclosure Remix)" – 4:14

• Digital download/streaming (Remix EP)^[39]

1. "Streets (Disclosure Remix)" – 4:14
2. "Streets (DJ Sliink Remix)" – 2:13
3. "Streets (Lazerbeak Remix)" – 3:26
4. "Streets (Party Favor Remix)" – 3:20
5. "Streets (Ape Drums Remix)" – 2:55

Gallery

Behind the scenes

Videos

References

Trivia

• With the release of "Streets (Silhouette Remix)", this is the second time that "Put Your Head on My Shoulder" by Paul Anka has been sampled by Doja Cat. The first time being "Freak".

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