Whereas hip-hop is having its resurgence now, Doechii is among the rappers pushing it again to its rightful spot on the prime. The Florida native has discovered a spot to develop in a style that has accepted her from the beginning. These previous couple of months have been a continuing circulation of accomplishments and alternatives for the rap star.
She gained Finest Rap Album for her critically acclaimed mixtape Alligator Bites By no means Heal on the 2025 Grammy Awards, earned Excellent New Artist on the 2025 NAACP Picture Awards, carried out alongside one of many esteemed MCs she grew up listening to: Ms. Lauryn Hill, and dominated Paris Trend Week in divine Sam Wolf-styled designs. The 26-year-old self-proclaimed Swamp Princess continues to get all the nice appears with an honor for Billboard Girl of the Yr for 2025.
Billboard introduced her prestigious recognition on Monday (March 10), forward of its annual Girls in Music occasion, the place Doechii will obtain the honour on March 29 on the YouTube Theater at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, Calif. Two years in the past, the rapper walked away with the Rising Star award on the identical occasion, indicating she was on a path towards taking up. She’s proven and proved extremely since then; however that is nothing new.
Doechii’s artistic aptitude, compelling charisma and fascinating artistry was witnessed 10 years in the past over on YouTube. Her very first publish on the platform options her singing a canopy of “Do You Need to Construct a Snowman?,” from the Disney film Frozen. From there, she supplied an inside take a look at her life: the nice, the dangerous and the ugly. Transferring into her personal place, getting fired, thrift hauls, story occasions and extra, Doechii was vlogging all of it. She was a YouTuber extraordinaire. As folks engaged along with her content material, she additionally introduced them alongside on her artist journey.
Her Coven Music Classes, wherein she recorded songs whereas sitting on her mattress, led to the sonic gem “Anxiousness,” her flip on singer Gotye’s 2011 traditional “Any individual That I Used to Know.” She formally launched the music final week. The Swamp, the title she affectionately calls her fan base, was ecstatic. Actual ones knew it was a success when she posted it again on YouTube in 2020.
However rapping was all the time on the coronary heart of her music, displayed on early standout tracks “Ladies,” “Spookie Coochie,” “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake” and “What’s Your Identify?.” Initiatives like Coven Music Session, Vol. 1 in 2019, and Oh The Locations You may Go in 2020, supplied promise of her star potential. The identical month Doechii signed to one in every of hip-hop’s most revered indie labels, High Dawg Leisure, in 2022, Doechii dropped the lifted ode “Persuasive;” she was outta right here. The multi-hyphenate launched everybody who was late to the occasion that she was a rapping, singing, dancing and hit-making power to be reckoned with by means of the music and its accompanying video.
What adopted was larger and higher after that. The controversial video for her observe “Loopy,” wherein she bares all of it whereas flaunting a gun as chaos (and different nude ladies) surrounds her, her first Billboard Scorching 100 hit “What It Is (Block Boy)” and the Alligator Bites By no means Heal period. The mixtape is a masterful showcase of Doechii being each a pupil of hip-hop and one in every of its extra riveting new lecturers along with her entertaining flows, uncooked anecdotes and full of life supply. “Denial Is a River,” “Nissan Altima” and “Wait” are proof of that. She locked in a Billboard 200 spot at No. 14 for the tape, and climbed the Billboard Scorching 100 with “Denial Is a River” and “Nissan Altima.”
Music followers exterior the tradition are simply now catching on to Doechii’s nice wave. However that is the way it goes. XXL put her on the quilt of the journal in 2022, as a part of its annual Freshman Class, and even then, a few of hip-hop was nonetheless late to her occasion. Higher late than by no means although. The elite MC has turn out to be the “it” lady for all the correct causes. Being named Girl of the Yr is an esteemed feat and an indication of her well-deserved time within the highlight in 2025. A 12 months previous to her being an XXL Freshman, Doechii informed this very web site in an interview for The Break, “I’m going to be popular culture, interval.” Mission completed.