Doja Cat's upcoming new album is a "pop-driven project", despite the star previously declaring: "No more pop".

The 29-year-old singer and rapper has issued an update on her new record, Vie, insisting she "knows" she can make pop music, but she called out people who "don't respect" the genre.

She told V Magazine: "I do want to be self-aware enough to admit the fact that this is a pop-driven project.

"I know that I can make pop music, and pop is just that it's popular.

"It starts to become a bit of a thing that's viewed as a sport by people who are just bystanders to it, who enjoy it, but maybe also don't respect it or what it is, which is just music.

"There are some people who don't see it as music. They see it as if this is some kind of football for girls and gays."

In April 2023, Doja wrote on X: "No more pop", and in another message she posted: "Pop isnt exciting to me anymore. I dont wanna make it (sic)"

However, she has clearly had a U-turn for her new album, which is about "love, romance, and sex", and relationships.

She added: "The concept is very pointed towards love, romance, and sex - and discourse in relationships.

"Really just relationships in general, and relationships with yourself, even.

"But what exactly does that have to do with foregone times?

"I think right now, you hear a lot of songs about breakups, and a lot of songs about how we're just kind of sick of men. I have a song like that on this album.

"But the thing is, there are so many ways to talk about that feeling - like, ugh, men."

But Doja - whose real name is Amala Dlamini - insisted her new record is about her "hope" for relationships.

She said: "This album is very much about love in a way that reflects how I want it to be in the future - my hope, my hopefulness. What I hope it could be. Because I remember there was a time when people were talking about wanting to be with each other, and it seems to have gotten a bit more vapid and just sort of like, not real... not loving, not romantic."

In May, the star told how Vie will "fully encapsulate" the '70s and '80s - with some "modern twists".

Speaking on Los Angeles' 102.7 KIIS FM radio station, she said: "I'm really punching my foot through the wall into that situation.

"I want to really fully encapsulate that time and still give it some modern twists here and there."