Doja Cat Ends Year-Long Chart-Topping Drought for Hip-Hop With “Paint the Town Red”

Doja Cat has another No. 1 song and has broken this year’s hip-hop singles curse. The Grammy-winner’s “Paint the Town Red” from forthcoming LP Scarlet marks the first No. 1 hip-hop track in over a year ending the longest chart break since 2001, per Billboard.

“Paint the Town Red,” which samples 1963 Dionne Warwick hit “Walk on By,” also marks Doja’s second chart-topper, following the “Say So” remix with Nicki Minaj, which held the No. 1 spot for one week in May 2020. Ironically, Minaj’s “Super Freaky Girl” was the last rap song to lead the Billboard Hot 100 in August 2022. Since then, only three rap singles have reached No. 2 on the chart: Lil Durk and J. Cole’s “All My Life”; Drake’s “Search & Rescue”; and Drake and 21 Savage’s “Rich Flex.”

Doja Cat - Paint The Town Red (Official Video)www.youtube.com

The year also showed a hiatus in chart-topping hip-hop albums, a first since 1993. Ending the drought was Lil Uzi Vert with The Pink Tape in June, followed by Travis Scott’s Utopia in July. On September 22, Doja and Drake will have back-to-back releases with Scarlet and For All the Dogs, respectively. Other singles from Scarlet include “Attention” and “Demons,” the latter which dropped at the beginning of September.

Doja Cat - Attention (Official Video)www.youtube.com

Doja Cat - Demons (Official Video)www.youtube.com

“I think this project is a really fun canvas for me to play with my rap skills and talk about what’s going on in my life. But I’m not abandoning who I was and what I know about pop and singing and that aspect of music,” Doja told Harper’s Bazaar last month.

This fall, Doja Cat will embark on her first headlining tour with support from Ice Spice and Doechii. Ahead of the tour, Doja and Ice Spice are slated to perform at the 2023 MTV VMAs on Tuesday, September 12, with Nicki Minaj as the night’s emcee.