Alligator Bites Never Heal by Doechii

You don’t need to remember the name Jaylah Ji'mya Hickmon, but you’ll most definitely want to remember her stage name, Doechii. While this may be the first time you’re hearing her name, it will certainly not be the last. Doechii, 26 years old, was born in Tampa, Florida, currently resides in Los Angeles, and with her third full-length mixtape in her short five-year career, Alligator Bites Never Heal, she is finally being discovered by the half-centenarian suburbanite market.¹

Doechii came up with her nickname as she was moving from elementary school to middle school in 6th grade, as something of an alter ego. She had been bullied for her shyness in elementary school, so came up with a new name to represent a different side of her personality. Jaylah was bullied, but Doechii would never stand for that.

While I’d no doubt heard Doechii’s voice prior to hearing Alligator for the first time, the first time I saw her name and thought “who is this?!” was her guest spot on the song “Balloon” on Tyler, the Creator’s 2024 album Chromakopia. That led me to Alligator and I quickly fell in love with the album. There are some great hip hop songs on here. “Nissan Altima,” one of the early singles, one of the most vulgar songs, and also my favorite song from the album, demonstrates Doechii’s skill as a rapper and lyricist.

In “Nissan Altima,” Doechii declares, “I’m the new hip-hop Madonna. I’m the trap Grace Jones.” With Doechii, it’s easy to accept this level of bravado as fact. The music is amazing, don’t get me wrong, but the reason I know she’s going to grow to become one of the most popular voices in pop culture – as big if not bigger than Madonna or Grace Jones – very soon is her attitude and outlook on the music industry and life. A couple interviews she’s done recently do a good job of showing Doechii, the person: “[Zane Lowe’s Apple Music interview]”(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQI9zoqmcqM) from Dec. 14, and “[Nardwuar² vs. Doechii]”(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bjFEMRgOz8) from Dec. 20.

In case you couldn’t tell, Doechii is exceedingly media savvy. In addition to the video for “Nissan Altima”, she also released two other visually compelling videos around the same time this past summer, before the full mixtape came out on August 30:“Bullfrog” and “Catfish.” That could have been enough on its own to carry the album to great success, but the hype machine continued. She performed “live on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on December 5, and then released an “NPR Tiny Desk Concert a day later.

She then kicked it up to a full maelstrom of content, all leading to the release of the amazing video featured above for the fantastic song “Denial is a River.” To increase hype for the song and video, Doechii worked with directors Carlos Acosta and James Mackel to release a series of odd TV-based teasers, using the song title (but not the song itself) as the name of a fictitious new 80s TV show. Over the days between Boxing Day (Dec 26) and the full video being released on January 2, she released a total of five such teasers on Instagram and other social media outlets (in addition, I believe, to playing them on actual broadcast television, “Adult Swim”-style):

Teaser 1: Denial Is A River Show Opening Credits (featuring the theme song to “Family Matters”)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Swamp Princess (@doechii)

Teaser 2: Doechii Slaps Brad Pitt (aka Earl Sweatshirt)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Swamp Princess (@doechii)

Teaser 3: La Rosa De Doechii

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Swamp Princess (@doechii)

Teaser 4: Can I Hit That?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Swamp Princess (@doechii)

Teaser 5: The Doechii Experience

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Swamp Princess (@doechii)

That last teaser pays off the name of the song by finishing the age-old joke, “Denial is a river in Egypt”. The day after that last teaser, the full video for the song came out. Meanwhile, Doechii and a cast of characters hosted a nearly 2-hour live stream called “Denial is a Stream.” All told, the list of guest stars across the entire set of videos is long, including (but not limited to) actor-comedians Zack Fox and Rickey Thompson, and Top Dawg Entertainment peers ScHoolboy Q and SiR, as well as Teezo Touchdown, Earl Sweatshirt, Baby Tate, and DJ Miss Milan (no, I didn’t know all those names prior to watching the videos, but I’m learning). That is an impressive amount of preamble for a 2 minute, 44 second video for an even shorter (but no less great) song.

It seems all but inevitable that Doechii will be taking home a handful of Grammys when the award show airs the first weekend of February. She’s nominated for four awards, and it would not be surprising to see her on the stage four times. Mark my words: this is just the beginning. We’re nowhere near the top of what Doechii can achieve, and at 26, she’s got a long, star-studded red carpet ahead of her.

^{1. I jest – there’s nothing lucrative about my personal demographic when it comes to up-and-coming or even currently-hot-shit musicians. But I have a strong sense that I’m probably very much in the minority of my peers who have heard of Doechii. But I’m also certain that that will be changing very soon.↩}
^{2. I’m ashamed to admit I only discovered Nardwuar this year. (Thanks Pete!) If you’ve never heard of Nardwuar, I encourage you to watch him interview Doechii (link) and then watch any number of the thousands of interviews he’s done since he started in October, 1987. His interviews are unlike anything you’ve ever seen, and you will not be disappointed.↩}