Doja Cat

10/21/2019 – Doja Cat – Tidal’s 5th Annual TIDAL X Benefit Concert – Arrivals – Barclays Center – New York City, NY, USA -Photo Credit: PZ New York City Photography / PRPhotos.com

Birth Name: Amalaratna Zandile Dlamini

Place of Birth: Los Angeles, California, United States

Date of Birth: October 21, 1995

Ethnicity:
*Zulu South African (father)
*Ashkenazi Jewish, possibly other (mother)

Doja Cat is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Doja’s middle name, Zandile (zuh-ndee-lè), is a Zulu name meaning “they have multiplied.”

Her father, Dumisani Dlamini (Dumisani Wiseman Dlamini), is a black South African actor, composer, dancer, and film producer. He is from Durban, and is of Zulu background. He co-starred in the film Sarafina! (1992).

Her mother, Deborah Elizabeth Sawyer, is a white American artist. She was known as Ishwari while she lived in a Hindu ashram.

Doja Cat has said:

I’m Jewish, my grandma’s Jewish, she’s white, and she was never exposed to music like that until she started meeting people and was like, wow I really love this. Once she had me, she would play a lot of Erykah Badu, a lot of Fugees, and Jamiroquai and Seal, Earth, Wind, & Fire, Alice Coltrane, a lot of stuff like that…

It is not clear if Doja Cat’s maternal grandfather is Jewish, as well.

Doja Cat was raised partly in Rye, New York, and then in Oak Park, California.