Doechii performs and Q&A at Grammy Museum

On Wednesday night, the lights inside the Grammy Museum’s Clive Davis Theater in downtown Los Angeles were ablaze thanks to an electric generator named Doechii.

When Doechii walked onto the stage to deafening cheers and shouts, she was as excited as a packed theater and immediately launched into a rocking and engaging performance of 11 songs. Accompanied by DJ Miss Milan, Doechii opened with “Persuasive” in a mini-concert that included “Boiled Peanuts,” “Denial Is a River,” “Spookie Coochee,” “Nissan Altima,” “Boom Bap” ” and the heartwarming and positive “Memoirs of a Black Girl,” which audiences loved.

Before launching into the “Death Roll,” an excited yet humble Doechi took time to address the audience directly, thanking her mom (who was in the audience) and her family, Top Dawg Entertainment/Capitol Records, and the Grammy Museum And there were raving fans in the room. “I’m so excited to celebrate such an incredible year and a new era in hip-hop,” said the current four-time Grammy nominee.

The Tampa-born, Los Angeles-based artist is the perfect guest for the final installment of the museum’s American Express-sponsored 2024 Spotlight program. Nominated: Best New Artist, Best Rap Performance (“Nissan Altima”), Best Remixed Recording (Kaytranada Remix of “Ego”) and Best Rap Album (Crocodile bites never heal) — the first female rapper to appear in the category since Cardi B Invasion of privacy 2020.

Before that, the self-styled swamp princess spent the past 18 months laying the groundwork for her career breakthrough, including performances on the main stage at Coachella; opening Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour; Toured with Doja Cat; and collaborated with JT on the popular Eurodance/hip-hop fusion “Alter Ego”. After releasing her critically acclaimed mixtape Crocodile In August, she guest-starred on Tyler, the Creator’s latest album color blindness and performed at his latest music festival, Camp Flog Gnaw.

After the show, Doechii took a break and returned for an enlightening and humorous conversation with four-time Grammy Award-winning rapper Killer Mike. In his initial pre-show introduction, Killer Mike said, in part: “She is an amazing representation of the Florida swamp, which has provided us with talent from the art world, from sculptor Augusta Savage to author Zoro La Neal Huston. She’s a performer; a rapper who raps loudly when rap needs some rappers…I think he’s the artist of the present and the future and will change music forever.

Here are five audio excerpts from the pair’s freewheeling conversation, along with insightful audience questions about Doechii’s childhood, creative process, hard-earned confidence and career advice, among other talking points:

What made her put her pure soul into the record: My confidence was truly built and nurtured. I wasn’t always this confident. I wasn’t always in an environment where I felt proud to be a dark-skinned, outspoken girl. So that confidence is really built behind closed doors. My mother was a single mother of three girls and she told me every day that I was the most beautiful girl in the world. I would leave that home environment with confidence, and then I would go to school and get bullied a lot. Ultimately, I made a choice: I refused to be anything but happy. I made a choice, no matter what the cost, no matter how others judge me, I will be myself. The confidence I feel sitting on the couch now is the same confidence I had when I decided to commit to this project. I wanted to give people an audiovisual experience of living in my skin, living in my life, how my brain works, what I’m thinking, what I’m afraid of, what I love. That’s why I’m so honored to represent women in rap in the hip-hop album category.

Her ultimate goal: My ultimate goal, besides the accolades, money and everything, is that I want the next icons of the world to be inspired by me. I feel like they’re there. They’re watching my interviews, studying me and listening to my music. They are looking at me. So I must be free. I have to do my best. I had to show up because I just felt it. She was outside watching me. I don’t know if it’s me looking at me, or if someone is actually looking at me, but that’s what drives me: Someone needs this.

Stay determined on your career path: Well, one, it’s on you. It’s not up to you. When I say I want to be the best, it comes from a place of real healthy competition. My family is very competitive, so I’m also very competitive in a healthy way. I talk about this a lot, but I miss the competitive sportsmanship in hip-hop, where everyone wants to be the best lyricist. They want to tell the story in the silliest way possible. They would rap against each other because it makes you stronger. It makes you all stronger. Like oh, he just made a pun. I want to play three in a row. I want to play four in a row. I like this. I want to be the best at my craft. I like this genre. I like music. I love doing it.

Breaking down her writing process: A lot of my writing process, at least for my brain, is that I have to move fast. If I don’t move fast enough, doubt will arise, slowing me down. If I don’t move on to the next line, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s not cool. Let me do it again. So I like to time myself. I’ll set a timer for an hour and whatever you get in that hour, that’s what you get, baby girl. Then you have to move on. It forces you to live in the moment. It forces you to believe in yourself. I also keep telling myself: I have the right to suffer losses now. I have the right not to say cool things, the right to be vulnerable, the right to be corny, etc. In this moment, I have the right to be anyone. Then I must move on.

Advice for creators building their careers while dealing with real life: Every creative gets to this point: you finally have to choose your art. You have to choose your art over anything else. If a relationship distracts you, you need to choose your art. I choose to record today. I chose to post today. I choose to keep walking. I chose not to invest my money in that and instead invested my money in singing lessons. Ultimately, it’s your decision. I know it sounds cliché, but seriously, as a creative, you have to choose yourself over and over again. Don’t allow yourself to come up with excuses that will hold you back. You do whatever it takes and keep working on yourself. Then, when you get that thing (what you’ve been working towards), there’s another battle.