Doja Cat and SZA is a tandem that has already proven its dominance. With the explosion of their 2021 track “Kiss Me More,” which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and is now 5x platinum, the R&B/pop dynamos had fans begging for a follow-up.
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Two years later, they finally delivered. On Friday (April 14), with very little warning, SZA released the “Kill Bill” remix with Doja Cat. Immaculately playing along to the song’s theme about revenge against an ex for moving on, Doja’s rapped verse tells a tale of “his new girlfriend being next,” just as SZA sings in the song’s chorus.
Breaking into her ex’s home to find him with another girl, Doja decides violence is the only answer. The added hip-hop verse to “Kill Bill” works out perfectly, especially considering Doja is on the precipice of releasing her first rap album, which she has continued to allude to throughout the past several months.
She grabbed the kitchen knife, so I pulled out the blick
Ain’t got it all the time, thank God I did for this
‘Cause she was seein’ red, and all I saw was you
It happened in a flash when she charged at me
Just hours before the song’s release, Doja and SZA tweeted at each other hinting at the song’s release. “@sza sis… I did something bad,” Doja sent to SZA. “Jesus.. what is it,” SZA replied, to which Doja revealed the time of release for the impending track.
Before this, however, fans believed the next Doja Cat-SZA collaboration would come as a remix to SZA’s SOS lead single “Shirt.” At a performance in July 2022, SZA announced that “Shirt,” which had been blowing up on TikTok for months before its October 2022 release, would contain a feature verse from an artist’s name whose name “starts with a D” and “rhymes with soulja.”
Unfortunately, months later during an interview with Complex, TDE’s president Terrence “Punch” Henderson explained a tight timeline they were following to release SOS forced them to only include the original version of “Shirt” without the Doja feature. However, he also asserted that the Doja version would likely be used as a remix put out afterward.
With the recent momentum of “Kill Bill,” though, which peaked at No. 2 on the Hot 100 and has been on the chart for 17 weeks, SZA and Doja both likely felt this was the more appropriate song for a remix. And rightly so. Listen to the “Kill Bill” remix below.
Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for CELINE
