Doechii is an artist with a relentless vision. She creates far-out worlds through unorthodox rap; her hard-hitting animated flow and genuine love for dressing up grants her the magician-like capabilities to be who and whatever she wants to be on any given day. “My love for fashion comes from my mom,” Doechii tells GU while she is perched up on a glam chair as her makeup and hair artist go in before she heads to the LaQuan Smith NYFW show. “I have always been obsessed with women. I just love watching women be women. I remember watching my mom when I was little. I used to love watching her get ready and do her makeup and put on her clothes.”
The Florida rapper’s last mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal is all about introspective confrontation and real rap. Online, Doechii’s “Swamp Sessions” series where she hints at songs on the now-released project; divulges into different aspects of her personal life through candid musical storytelling and she reveals how much of a poet Doechii is. “My music ability is a little bit deeper spiritually compared to my involvement with fashion,” Doechii defines to me as her makeup artist carefully opening bright-colored eye contacts for her to don. “You know how I express myself in fashion is just something that I choose to do and I like to do that is fun for me. However, music is something that I have to do. It’s my therapy. It is how I process and move through life. For me to learn and grow in life, I have to express that through music.”
At the Bowery Hotel, Doechii the don (or the fashion-loving diva) inhabits different musical characters by collaborating with her stylist, Sam Woolf. Photographer Isaiah Johns documents their kismet process of bringing last-minute looks to life. In “Boom Bap”, Doechii raps about her magnetic aura, and in “Nissan Altima,” Doechii slyly states she is the Black “Carrie Bradshaw with a back brace on” as she carries the fashion game forward.
For LaQuan Smith, Doechii first put on a pin-stripped jumpsuit that she shortly switched out for a matted red monochromatic suit with a flared-out white collar — giving dripped-out head honcho (or total H.B.I.C). “My mom’s style was so glamorous and I think that my attachment to fashion comes from just spending quality time with my mom and how I couldn’t wait to grow up and become a woman.”
Doechii’s past tour looks have spanned from cigarette accessories to floor-length mesh dresses and itty-bitty tops that drape like silk curtains across her body. During her glam session, Doechii possesses a serene energy. For her to ramp up the energy in the room, she has to activate herself before she steps outside into the flurry of flash photographers. “Let’s put on something c***t, my whole music queue is old school rap now because of the mixtape” Doechii alerts her makeup artist before she puts on Eartheater. Then, she shrieks with excitement: “We made it on Billboard 200 y’all off a mixtape and it’s my first one!”
The TDE artist has an internalized sense of duality that allows her to coast between the Doechii that performs and the Doechii that loves to nourish her soul through restorative relaxation. “I’m a theater kid,” Doechii tells me with the widest smile. “I live for entertaining people. I live for pleasing them and giving them something to talk about. I like to entertain. I like to make people feel things, and I like to feel things. So with my fashion, I always want to give them something to talk about. I never want to be a bore.”
Alligator Bites Never Heal is a confessional for Doechii to be more understood, a 19-track project that is old-school rap at its core. “This mixtape has allowed me to be vulnerable in a way that I didn’t think was possible. It just freed me from the fear of expressing myself.” Her past “Persuasive” clubhouse hit and R&B adjacent singles like “What It Is” have revealed the creative range Doechii innately carries and her latest offering shows to listeners that she is barely scratching the surface of what is possible. “Even though I have a song called “Alter Ego”, Doechii is not an alter ego. I am this artist on and off camera. Clothes are just clothes. Makeup is just makeup. Doechii is me through and through.”