Doja Cat is one of the most creative, shape-shifting artists of her generation. Doja Cat, born Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini, built her empire from a bedroom floor in California, uploading beats to SoundCloud before the world had any idea who she was.
Today, she is a Grammy winner, a Billboard record-breaker, and a cultural phenomenon. But behind the bold looks and the boundary-pushing music is a family story that is far more complicated than most fans realise.
She has one known sibling, an older brother named Raman Dalithando Dlamini, and their relationship has never been simple. It took a shocking set of legal documents, filed by their own mother, to bring that story into public view.
So who exactly is Raman Dlamini, and what do we actually know about Doja Cat siblings?
A Family Built Across Two Continents
To understand Doja Cat siblings, you first have to understand the household they came from, because it was anything but conventional.
Her mother, Deborah Sawyer, is an American graphic designer of Jewish heritage, and her father, Dumisani Dlamini, is a South African performer of Zulu descent, best known for starring as Crocodile in the original Broadway cast of the musical Sarafina! and the 1992 film adaptation.
The former couple were in a relationship for a few years in the 1990s before Doja’s father returned to his birth country, South Africa, leaving their two children in Sawyer’s custody.
That departure left a mark that Doja Cat has never fully shaken. She told Rolling Stone in 2021, “I felt confused, a little bit. It’s a little strange to see everybody else with their dad, and you didn’t even really have one.” A childhood friend went even further, recalling that Doja would always think her father was coming, and he never did.
So from early on, it was just the three of them. Their mother, Doja, and Raman.
Doja Cat and her older brother, Raman Dalithando Dlamini, grew up with their mother in New York and California. Their upbringing was unconventional even by Los Angeles standards. At the age of eight, Dlamini returned to California with her mother and brother to live at the Sai Anantam Ashram, a commune in Agoura Hills, where the family practised Hinduism for four years.
Raman, apparently, adapted better than his sister. Doja once recalled of that time, “My brother liked it. He had a lot of friends. But I didn’t have many friends. For me, it was just like, ‘I can’t eat what I want to eat. I can’t really do kid stuff.'”
Two siblings in the same commune, experiencing it completely differently. That contrast would come to define much of their relationship.
Who Is Raman Dalithando Dlamini?
Doja Cat’s brother, Raman Dalithando Dlamini, is two years older than her and has largely stayed out of the public eye. Unlike celebrity siblings who often embrace the limelight, Raman maintains a low social media presence, and little is known about his career or personal interests.
There are no verified Instagram pages, no public career, and no interviews on record. The few photographs that have surfaced online showing Raman with Doja Cat have since been deleted, making them difficult to trace or verify. What circulates online tends to be reposted fan screenshots rather than original confirmed images.
Raman and Doja Cat are two years apart and were raised by their mother. Doja Cat revealed in a 2021 interview with Rolling Stone magazine that she and her brother were one of the few mixed-race children in their neighbourhood and experienced racism.
The siblings grew up in Oak Park, California, where Doja was one of the few mixed-race kids in the community. She faced racism and isolation, and according to her, her brother even teased her for not having Black friends.
Those early dynamics paint a picture of a sibling relationship that was never easy, long before it became a legal matter.
The Restraining Order That Shocked the Internet
In January 2024, a story broke that stopped Doja Cat fans in their tracks.
Raman Dalithando Dlamini, brother to Doja Cat, was accused of physically and verbally abusing the rapper. According to TMZ, the siblings’ mother filed a restraining order against her son.
The documents filed by the rapper’s mother, Deborah Elizabeth Sawyer, on January 12 in Los Angeles Superior Court alleged her son knocked the singer’s teeth out.
The mother accused her son of destroying and stealing some of his sister’s property, and also alleged that Dlamini is verbally abusive to his sister, making Doja feel “unsafe and traumatised.”
The court-ordered protection granted to Sawyer did not automatically extend to Doja Cat. The judge reportedly decided that the rapper would have to file her own request for a restraining order.
Crucially, this was not the first time this had happened. Both women had temporary restraining orders against Raman in place since 2017; however, they had since expired. The 2024 filing renewed those protections after years of what the documents described as an escalating pattern of behaviour.
Raman Denies Everything
Following the reports, Raman Dalithando Dlamini broke his silence, at least briefly.
The Shade Room obtained exclusive content of Dlamini following the reports of the restraining order. In an exclusive video, Doja Cat’s brother denied the allegations against him. However, when it came to questions about recent contact with Doja or his mother, he offered “no comment.” He also denied that a restraining order exists.
As the interviewer continued to press for details, he said he “hasn’t seen anybody in years.” He added, “There’s no story,” while avoiding eye contact with the camera.
Doja has not given any public statements about the restraining order or her brother’s denials. Her mother has also not provided any additional public comments about her filing.
The silence from Doja Cat herself has been total. For a woman who is rarely short of words online, that silence speaks volumes.
What This Family Story Actually Tells Us
It would be easy to reduce Raman Dlamini to a headline. But the fuller picture is more human and more complicated than that.
Doja Cat has talked about having siblings living in different cities, but little is known about them. She is appreciative of the small family unit she grew up in. She told The Fader, “It’s always great to have both of your parents in your life, and all of your brothers and sisters and everybody loves each other, but like, s*** isn’t like that sometimes.”
That quote, delivered long before any of the legal drama surfaced, reads differently now. It sounds less like a throwaway line and more like someone who already knew, from experience, that family doesn’t always look the way it’s supposed to.
As of now, Doja has not publicly addressed the latest allegations, and following the restraining order, Raman’s current whereabouts remain unclear. He has no known public career and has kept away from media attention.
Doja Cat has built one of the most distinctive careers in modern music on the back of an unconventional, often painful upbringing. A father she never really knew. A childhood spent moving between communes, neighbourhoods, and coasts. A brother whose story remains largely hidden, except for the moments it has forced its way into the open.
The siblings behind one of pop’s biggest stars may not share her spotlight. But the family that shaped her, in all its complexity, is impossible to separate from the artist she became.
