2024 showed us that 2025 belongs to Doechii

I’ve spent most of 2024 questioning the relevance of new artists’ albums. There are so many new acts, and the labels that represent them, who seem to rely on a series of cobbled-together songs to create a project made for marketing deals, not music. Crafting a coherent body of work felt like the musical equivalent of using a phone book or a CD burner — outdated. So I was pleased when Doechii’s mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal, dropped in September, proving that there are artists who are still flexing their creativity, perfecting their craft and taking the listener on a real sonic and thematic journey. Doechii does just that and reminds us what it means when a new artist is given the freedom to be their full, ingenious selves.

I first heard the Tampa, Florida, native on “What U Sed,” from Isaiah Rashad’s incredible 2021 album The House Is Burning. Her verse was an eruption, a command of flows, rhythm and cadence that became one of the standout moments of that year (accompanied by a show-stealing cameo at the BET Hip-Hop Awards). It was one of those verses that announced an arrival and a promise that it’ll be a long time before Doechii goes anywhere.

A year later, Doechii charted her own course with “What It Is,” a pop/R&B banger that was tailor-made for radio, landing at No. 29 on Billboard Hot 100. This is where Doechii’s career veered from what so many other new artists and labels are doing.

In the streaming era, the formula for most young artists involves making one big hit, using it for leverage for as much crossover appeal as possible to get sponsorship money and launch a nationwide tour as quickly as possible. What gets lost with this method is the art of the album — the cohesive debut project that creates a passionate fan base. Of course, the return on the investment of making a thought-out album is more delayed than simply taking a red-hot song on the road to sell tickets and merchandise. But a great album builds the foundation for fans to support an artist for years to come.

It’s a tactic that made 2023 Victoria Monét’s year. Monét made an album full of hits, accompanied by a tour in non-stadium venues that sold out across the country, creating demand and building a fever pitch for when she eventually does a larger tour. Doechii, who shares a similar versatility in talent as Monét, is using a similar tactic. She’s creating a buzz with a tour that sold out smaller venues across the country. Doechii choreographed her own performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Her Tiny Desk performance on NPR, complete with a praise break after “Nissan Altima,” was electrifying. And Doechii’s command of a large festival crowd during Tyler, The Creator’s Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival shows she’s honing her craft in anticipation of the big stadium shows to come.

But all of the performances don’t matter without the music to back it up. And Doechii gave fans just that with Alligator Bites Never Heal, a three-time Grammy-nominated project that feels like a step cousin to the deeply inventive sound that is an underrated tenet of the South. Doechii as a singer-rapper hybrid is going to create comparisons to Lauryn Hill, especially if any of those Grammy noms turn into wins. But she feels more like a child of the Dungeon Family, the Atlanta hip-hop collective that birthed Outkast and Goodie Mob, for the genre-bending spontaneity that oozes from every bar. At one moment on the album, she’s spitting raw hip-hop, quietly snarling through “Bullfrog.” The next moment she’s harmonizing through “Skipp,” sounding as adept at making sing-along R&B hits as she is sounding like she’s in a cypher.

But it’s when Doechii subverts the song structure that she’s at her best, using the beat as a canvas to do whatever she wants. Look at “Denial Is a River,” which takes us on a journey through the last few years of her career, framed by a nasty breakup. The song deteriorates into a dialogue between Doechii and her subconscious trying to cope with her sobriety. On the other hand, “Boom Bap” pokes fun at people angry that she opted to sing on the “What It Is” to top charts instead of rapping. The hook is full of nonsense, off-beat parodies of boom bap rap tropes, complete with literal spitting before the song turns into an operatic call to get Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith, the owner of her record label, Top Dawg Entertainment, on the phone. It’s that desire to take risks — the same desire that has her on a late-night talk show performance with backup doppelgänger dancers — that makes Doechii such an exhilarating listen.

It’s only appropriate that Doechii closed out 2024 exactly how I found her: tearing through another guest verse. This time it’s on Tyler, The Creator’s “Balloon.” The verse is raucous and clever, complete with a raunchy double entendre that elicits so much joy to repeat. She performed it with him during his Camp Flog Gnaw set, screaming her bars at the top of her lungs and looking like she belongs with one of rap’s biggest stars. Because she should be that comfortable. And if rumors prove true, Doechii will be doing the same for SZA and Kendrick Lamar, opening for his Grand National Tour in 2025.

This is Doechii’s trajectory. The upstart artist who belts out multisyllabic rhymes over classic rap beats while twerking in front of ten thousand fans. Whatever happens next for her is easy to predict: It’ll be whatever she wants.