Doechii’s New Year’s Knockout Punch
After a year-end slew of dazzlingly charismatic performances, from ’Colbert’ to Camp Flog Gnaw, the breakout rap star starts 2025 with a bonkers-good video.
Doechii’s “Denial Is a River,” a track that chronicles the last several years of her life with the beguiling storytelling acumen of Slick Rick, lends itself to creative visual treatments, whether through animated facial expressions or interpretive choreography. The Tampa-raised rapper touches on a shady boyfriend, the drugs and Hollywoodness that can accompany fame, even an ex trashing her belongings. Its brand new clip offers a cheeky take on 1990s Black sitcoms like Living Single and Family Matters—and a wildly fun new angle on all the worldbuilding Doechii’s been doing over the past few months. Casting actor/comedian/DJ/rapper Zack Fox as the cheating boyfriend was an inspired touch, and the promo trailer—set to the Family Matters theme song—also includes stars like Schoolboy Q, “Brad Pitt” (Earl Sweatshirt), Baby Tate, and Doechii’s DJ, Miss Milan.
Beyond Doechii’s fresh take on a classic style of hip-hop songwriting, the narrative arc of “Denial” remains compelling with repeated listens—from her dismay at “making TikTok music” to the realization that partying may be a problem, to its unconventional ending with Doechii telling herself to breathe, an inspired “whoosah” that seems to signify a door opening into her current artistic flourishing. On Thursday, she celebrated the video’s release with a celebratory stream of herself and her friends in a tinsel-covered studio, a chaotic Twitch-style hangout that was unfocused, at times hilarious, and indicative of her rightful trust in the first-thought, best-thought approach to making Alligator Bites Never Heal, her rambunctious, exacting 2024 mixtape.
The stream began with a cacophonous, New Year’s noisemaker-addled intro in which the chat had to inform Doechii that her sound was too low to hear—a funny indicator that even rising stars are hapless in the face of livestream sound mixing. For an hour and a half, she and her pink-wigged pals, including Baby Tate and Mike Thornwell, brought out “Denial Is a River” directors Carlos Acosta and James Mackel, introduced a balloon artist/clown named Be-Bop with Saucy Santana’s “Material Girl,” and did a precarious bit of yoga while screaming and cheering.
The greatness of Alligator Bites Never Heal was evident from the moment of its summer release, a marked improvement on already-compelling past work spanning her mid-2010s vlogs to her star-making album, 2020’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go. But the way she’s catapulted to what feels like inevitable national superstardom in the last few months has been awe-inspiring, her undeniable artistry on full mainstream display. In November, she performed tracks from Alligator Bites and 2022’s She / Her / Black Bitch EP on the Camp Flog Gnaw stage with a newfound confidence, precision, and charisma that recalled that of her collaborator Tyler, the Creator. She flowed flawlessly in a Miu Miu polo and tap pants, emitting an energy that suggests she knows her time is now.
She spent the fall touring for Alligator Bites; then, during a short press run at the beginning of December, it seemed like she blew up nationally in less than a week, starting with a performance of “Denial Is a River” and “Boiled Peanuts” on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, for which she choreographed herself and two dancers in perfect unison, connected in movement by their long braids and identical Gucci schoolgirl looks. The clip was as avant-garde as late-night TV gets, her dancers serving as both her friends and her conscience through the narrative of her lyrics. She followed up Colbert with an equally mesmerizing spot on NPR’s Tiny Desk that put a further magnifying glass on her formidable rapping. Together, they displayed an artist who’s put aside any outside concerns to give in to her own best impulses.
It’s hard to recall the last time a rapper became so immediately a national force off the sheer strength of their artistry—Tyler’s “Yonkers” video? Nicki Minaj in 2009, perhaps? But it’s clear that this new self-centering—the “whoosah” in question—has given Doechii powerful new clarity. Calling it now: 2025 is hers.
