Doechii Is Ready For Grammy Glory

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The choking inhales at the end of Denial Is A River is not an artistic interpretation of a panic attack; it’s a nod to a classic form of hip-hop.

“It’s actually a style from beat-boxing inspired by Dougie Fresh,” Doechii said in a December interview with Rolling Stone.“A hip-hop analyst would’ve recognized that,” she adds a subtle, one-sentence jab to fans and competitors alike: if you really want to digest the juice of Doechii’s craft, you have to study the history behind it first.

Class Is In Session

Doechii, née Jaylah Ji’mya Hickmon, has been making (and studying) music for a long time, but it’s her third mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal, that turned 2024 into a beast of a year for the Top Dog Entertainment artist. The self-proclaimed “trap Grace Jones” is nominated for three Grammy’s ahead of Sunday’s February 2 award show. Doechii described the triple-nominated project to Apple Music as, “a blossoming of work that I’ve been doing for a very long time internally, and now it’s finally showing itself.”

Denial Is A River, one of the most buzzy tracks (of many) on the EP, has now transformed into a video that parodies classic Black sitcoms and a viral performance art piece with none other than fellow creative genius Issa Rae. Like most of the work in Doechii’s canon, the song is fueled with old-school inspiration (She said she wanted the song to give Slick Rick “Children’s Story” energy). The conscious blend of new and vintage hip-hop has become the signature, unpredictable, Doechii style. The alligator queen took a big bite out of the rap game last year and has now warped the art form into a new type of monster in her jaws.

From rapping in holy-spirit tongues in her hypnotic track Boom Bap, to pulling inspiration from British rapper MF Doom ahead of her braided-cornrow, self-choreographed, late-night Steven Colbert performance, Doechii lyrically weaves the work of hip-hop pioneers into a futuristic, new millenium-cunty sound web that has everyone from rap legends to Gen Z giving the reigning rap princess props.

The 26-year-old glittered onto the Internet’s mainstream radar after the release of her 2020 EP, All the Places You’ll Go, which birthed the Tik-Tok sensation, “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake.” The song, which boasts Tampa club scene, rap, and R&B vibes, rightfully earned the attention of label heads with hungry ears for fresh talent. In 2022, she became the first female rapper to sign to TDE. Persuasive, 2023’s smooth, hip-hop/house track, linked Doechii with TDE label-mate SZA for the first time and racked up 30 million on-demand streams.

With three Grammy nods on the table for Sunday’s award show, Doechii has made it clear her professional hunger isn’t spurred on by the quest for streams or shiny hardware: it’s about honest, creative expression, with much of her work ripped from the pages of her own private journals.

“I don’t like secrets. And I have to tell my business on wax,” Doechii said during a Breakfast Club interview.

At a time in music where some corners of hip-hop are filled with artists throwing around punchlines laden with rumors of harm against women and children, (Last year, Drake accused Kendrick Lamar of adultery and domestic violence in Family Matters, and Kendrick’s L.A. anthem Not Like Us accused Drake of pedophilia, respectively), a rapper who is open about her wrap sheet is refreshing. Those open secrets include her former relationship with a man who was on the DL (which is the life-turned-art premise of Denial Is A River) and her struggles to overcome a fast-paced Hollywood addiction to drugs and alcohol.

“I like pills. I like drugs. I like gettin’ money. I like strippers. I like to f-ck. I like day-drinking and day parties and Hollywood,” she flows on Denial Is A River, which details her intoxicated, “celebration era” that spun out of control after she was signed to TDE. Doechii said eventually, the sparkle of the party lights started to fade, and she found herself spiritually disconnected which plunged her into a personal and artistic crisis. She said she finally found her way out of the cave when she decided to lean into a sober lifestyle.

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“This sobriety thing, I hear from God better when I’m sober, and I’m clear-minded,” she told The Breakfast Club.

“I only veer off of that when I distract myself with other things outside of me.”

Doechii’s commitment to her own truth and evolution is a North Star in an industry darkened by digital algorithms that favor trending audios and copy-paste-reel formats. To escape the temptation to follow formulas and influence, Doechii said she recorded the project in the studio alone, except for the company of her engineer, Jada, and the presence of her heavenly co-producer. Doechii credits her alignment with God for her new levels of creative vulnerability and output: her multi-Grammy-award-nominated mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal was written and produced in just one-month. The speed, paired with the quality of the work, is unprecedented; in fact, it’s supernatural.

“It was something in my spirit that was like ‘You need to drop this project now. If you don’t drop this project now, you’re going to miss the mark,” she said. Heeding the call, a star is born, signaling the dawn of a new era of hip-hop. We can all thank divine timing for that.

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