From hip-hop to TikTok, Doechii’s meteoric rise to stardom shows that artists can express their individuality and still gain popularity among diverse audiences.
Jaylah Ji'mya Hickmon, known by her stage name Doechii, began creating music on SoundCloud while in high school in Tampa, Florida. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Doechii said the pseudonym gave her the confidence to overcome mental health difficulties associated with being bullied. She remembers: “This wash of peace came over me, and I received ‘I am Doechii.’ But it was more like this feeling of—I made a choice, a decision. I am the most important character in this movie. This is my motherfucking movie.”
Doechii’s breakout single “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake” went viral on TikTok in 2020 for its tight lyrics and honest reflections about being a Black bisexual woman. It’s named after a children’s book in the Junie B. Jones series that emphasizes expressing one’s uniqueness in spite of bullies. According to Rolling Stone, before her music was removed from TikTok, the hashtag “#yuckybluckyfruitcake” was used over three million times to celebrate “glow ups” and weight loss transformations. As of 2025, the song has been streamed on Spotify over 56 million times.
In 2021, Doechii became the first female rapper to sign a contract with Top Dawg Entertainment. Specializing in hip-hop and R&B artists, the independent Los Angeles-based record label manages other stars including SZA, ScHoolboy Q, and Kendrick Lamar. Top Dawg helped Doechii record and create new singles and EPs to build a repertoire. However, it also pushed Doechii away from writing music that embraced her identity, and towards congenial work capable of mainstream success.
Especially in hip-hop music, the definition of “mainstream” heavily implies profit derived from white audiences. Rap music was originally created to discuss the Black experience in America. The U.S. State Department’s publication American Popular Music writes, “Much rap music does constitute a cultural response to historic oppression and racism, a system for communication among black communities throughout the United States.” Therefore, when Black artists like Doechii are asked to tone down their sound to become more profitable, it often dilutes broader political and cultural commentary pervading the genre. This idea can be extended to music created by other minorities such as queer and non-English speaking artists.
“BRO[,] I SWEAR THAT WAS SZA” comments @Chivemere on a popular TikTok by @Random_fandom786_. It celebrates Doechii’s infamous song “What It Is (Block Boy)” featuring Kodak Black, released in 2023. Old friends, Doechii opened for SZA during her “Good Days” tour in 2021. While Doechii didn’t receive much individual recognition, she proved that she can sing just as well as she raps. The lyrics are not as profound as Doechii’s previous work about her identity, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a catchier chorus. It has a clear pop sound, instead of hip-hop, and includes bits sampled from “No Scrubs” by TLC and “Some Cut” by Trillville. In the end, it’s unsurprising it went viral because of a (brace yourself) TikTok dance.
Doechii performed the “What It Is” TikTok dance on the Main Green when she played at Brown’s 2023 Spring Weekend. She brought four students on stage with her, which resulted in a TikTok that amassed 2.3 million views. Doechii toured during this time, but largely stopped creating music and made few other public appearances.
The first song on Doechii’s latest EP Alligator Bites Never Heal, “STANKA POOH,” begins with the death of her public image. She raps: “Let’s start the story backwards / I’m dead, she’s dead, just another Black Lives Mattered / And if I died today I’d die a bastard / TikTok rapper, part-time YouTube actor.” In contrast to Doechii’s mainstream music, these lyrics are deeply personal and political. They reveal a desire to start anew, to create art that functions on a deeper level than catchy lyrics and virality.
In later tracks “DENIAL IS A RIVER” and “BOILED PEANUTS,” Doechii explains her disappearance since the release of her first EP Oh The Places You’ll Go. Her voice is fierce as she candidly discusses her addiction, infidelity, fame, and loneliness. The success of Alligator Bites Don’t Heal was delayed until her late night debut of both songs on Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show. Doechii’s willingness—even audacity—to publicly perform her deepest confessions allowed her to metamorphose through authenticity.
The entire EP is Doechii’s proud self-reclamation of her rapper identity. The song titles all use caps lock, which creates an energetic strength that pervades every song. From electronic hit “NISSAN ALTIMA” to R&B blends like “SKIPP” and “HIDE N SEEK,” Doechii implies she is no longer making music to please her mainstream audience. Paradoxically, this was also far and away her most successful record, making her the third solo female artist to win Best Rap Album at the 2025 GRAMMYs.
My favorite track is “BOOM BAP.” A creative spin on a diss track, Doechii battles the expectations of fans and music executives. The song begins with onomatopoeia that confronts the canonical vernacular of hip-hop music: “Boom, bap, rap, rap, rapitty, rap-rap.” Known for short and quick lyricism, rap still struggles to be considered art, as opposed to gibberish. Doechii doubles down with a play on a phrase that permeates rap by men: “What it is? What it–? / What the fuck is it?” Doechii expresses her frustrations with her record label Top Dawg Entertainment, nicknamed “Top.” She repeats the refrain “Get Top on the phone” as a plea for creative expression beyond TikTok and mainstream music. Doechii also uncovers stereotypes and hypersexualization surrounding female rappers. She describes herself and her music: “Say it’s real and it’s rap / And it boom and it bap / And it bounce and it clap / And it’s house and its trap.” Finally, Doechii yells with a reverb overlay that makes her voice sound like an echo, “It’s everything / I’m everything.”
Since her Spring Weekend performance and the success of Alligator Bites Don’t Heal, Doechii has become an ace. An artist of reinvention and paced success, she has already begun to solidify her stardom, receiving praise from music royalty like Kendrick Lamar and Lady Gaga. She has performed at NPR’s Tiny Desk, the GRAMMYs, Paris Fashion Week, and even with Ms. Lauryn Hill, who recently won Apple’s Music’s #1 Best Album for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (which in many ways inspired Doechii’s image). In the monetized hyper-curatory digital age, Doechii’s return to selfhood is a compass pointing home.
