Doja Cat recently dropped a new song titled Balut from her upcoming fourth studio album Scarlet to be released on Friday, September 22.
The song has a mid-slow tempo and self-praising lyrics, which confused people, mostly Filipinos, about its meaning. The singer-rapper explained why she named it after the famous Filipino street food through an Instagram Story on September 17.
“I named the song Balut because it signifies a bird that’s being eaten alive. It’s a metaphor for Twitter stans and the death of Twitter toxicity. The beginning of ‘X’ and the end of ‘tweets’,” she wrote along with a photo of a bathroom in the background.
Doja Cat explains the meaning behind her new song ‘Balut’:
“i named the song balut because it signifies a bird that's being eaten alive. It's a metaphor for twitter stans and the death of twitter toxicity. The beginning of ‘X’ and the end of ‘tweets’.” pic.twitter.com/MPJELOnYi9
— Pop Base (@PopBase) September 16, 2023
The majority of Filipino netizens were not impressed with her explanation and pointed out that balut is not literally “a bird that’s being eaten alive.” For those who haven’t eaten it yet, balut is a fertilized duck egg that is incubated for 14 to 21 days until it’s hatched, then boiled and eaten from the shell.
Some even viewed it as “ethnocentric,” especially since more videos of foreigners eating balut and calling it “gross” were circulating on TikTok.
Meanwhile, others asked to respect each one’s culture and informed the internet more about balut.
A day after explaining the meaning behind Balut, Doja Cat talked about her experience of trying it for the first time on Instagram Live, “I liked it, but I don’t think I had it properly.”
She added, “Balut was good. It reminded me of a liver. I can taste the vitamins in it.” The singer-rapper clarified that it’s a fertilized egg, although she didn’t see the “duck inside necessarily.”
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“It wasn’t as whimsical as I thought it would be. Like the full [bird] and there’s feathers, and you’re eating it straight up. It wasn’t like that at all,” she shared.
The Say So singer also said she put vinegar on it, and her favorite part was the “juice.”
Doja Cat, who’s known for her tracks Attention, Kiss Me More, Paint The Town Red, and Need To Know, was previously called out in 2020 due to her alleged racist remarks on her song Dindu Nuffin.
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