Doechii: 5 Things To Know about Rapper Performing At BET Awards

“First bitch that rap, TDE/Top, Moo, and Punch, vouch for me/First day, label knew they hit the lottery/Now I’m the b-tch you ever after, happily,” rapped Doechii in her freestyle for XXL’s Freshman Freestyle. The young rap star — and labelmates with SZA and the outgoing Kendrick Lamar — is one of the performers scheduled to light up the stage at the 2022 BET Awards.

With a handful of EPs/mixtapes under her belt, and some noteworthy singles (and even more exciting features, like how she jumped on David Guetta’s “Trampoline” in 2022), Doechii proves that the future of hip-hop is bright, innovative, possibly sometimes confusing, but always exciting. Here’s what you need to know ahead of the June 26 awards show.

Doechii Is A Rapper Out Of Tampa, Florida

“My experience growing up in Tampa was really colorful, and being from the South, there’s a lot of culture,” Dochii told NME in May 2022. “I think Florida is really evolving [musically] after kind of being at a standstill. Kodak Black was kind of carrying hip-hop in Florida for a long time, but now the sound is starting to evolve, and a lot of artists are finally breaking through. People are really starting to take notice of all the different sounds, which is really beautiful.”

Doechii said she wrote her first song in the sixth grade. From there, a love of music flourished, and she continued her ambitions of becoming a rapper. These goals led her out of the Sunshine State. Doechii was “living in New York for a while,” she told Rolling Stone in May 20202. “I went back to Florida for the pandemic, cuz I didn’t wanna be quarantined in New York. I’d rather quarantine, you know, with my family in Florida.”

She First Blew Up In 2020

Doechii’s breakthrough came in September 20220, when she dropped “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake.” The single was an introduction (“Hi, my name’s Doechii with two i’s / I feel anxious when I’m high (Huh) /

Teachers say I talk too much / Momma say I don’t talk enough,” per Genius). The song went viral on TikTok, leading to her signing with Top Dawg Entertainment.

“I didn’t think it would blow up the way that it did,” she told Rolling Stone in May 2022. “I mean, at that time I was independent, so I funded everything, and I like was in a place where I swore that I would never work for anybody ever again, and that I was gonna be a full-time artist. And so, by committing to that, I like filed for unemployment. So, I was using my unemployment checks and I only had one left and I blew that last check on that music video.”

“But I felt like that was me and God going in agreement with each other about what was gonna happen,” she added. “So I didn’t expect for it to blow up, but I still knew that God had me, you know?”

Nicki Minaj Is A Major Influence On Her

“I knew this girl who was a huge Nicki Minaj fan,” Doechii told NME about her sixth-grade musical interests, “and at this time, I was really Christian, and I believed that Nicki Minaj was a part of the Illuminati [laughs]. I was really against her. But she put me onto Nicki Minaj, and I was immediately hooked and wanted to start a group. I wanted to rap, so I wrote my first song, and we did it at a talent show, and we won!”

Doechii Also Cites Many Other Artists She Admires

“I’m a huge Kanye West fan. Tyler, The Creator, Beyoncé, Lauryn Hill, OutKast. These are artists who are the most honest, the most creative, and I’m really inspired by them. They gave me the courage to do what I’m doing right now,” she told NME. She also said she’s a “huge Paramore fan” when asked about how she shouted out the band on “Yuckly Blucky Fruitcake.”

“[Hayley Williams is] a badass: fighting against body norms, all the pressure that society puts on girls, and I love that. That’s why I f-ck with her so much, outside of the fact that her vocals are f-cking insane,” said Doechii. “She’s extremely talented, it’s crazy. I wanted to sing like her, write like her. She’s played a huge role in my life.”

She Was Part Of XXL’s ‘2022 Freshman Class’

One of hip-hop’s biggest accolades is being named part of XXL’s “Freshman Class,” a list of up-and-coming musicians. J.Cole, Papoose, Mac Milley, YG, Kendrick Lamar, Meek Mill, Future, Travis Scott, Ty Dolla Sign, 21 Savage, Denzel Curry, Wale, Megan Thee Stallion, and Freddie Gibbs are just some of the artists who have been inducted into the yearly series.

In 2022, the magazine’s “Freshman Class” included Doechii, as well as Nardo Wick, SoFaygo, Babyface Ray, Big Scarr, Big30, Kali, KenTheMan, Cochise, KayCyy, Saucy Santana, and BabyTron.

Part of the “Freshman Class” celebration is the 90-second freestyle. During Doechii’s turn, she showed “a plethora of flows,” according to Hot New Hip Hop, but the performance left fans polarized. “Some people just didn’t know what to make of it,” noted HNHH.