After making history at the Grammys, it’s likely no surprise Doechii is in the mood for looking back. The “Denial is a River” singer recently opened up about the intense bullying she experienced as a child, and how embodying her now acclaimed rap persona helped her to overcome.
Doechii, whose birth name is Jaylah Ji’mya Hickmon, has previously spoken on the inspiration for her pseudonym. In a 2022 interview with Vulture, she explained that she wrote the name down in her diary during a period of depression. “It just came to me,” she recalled. “Jaylah might’ve been getting bullied but I decided Doechii wouldn’t stand for that shit. My whole attitude was different. It stuck.”
But it turns out the details to that story are far darker, as Doechii recently revealed in a new interview with Dazed.
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“I was in a position where I thought about killing myself because the bullying was so bad,” she explained. “Then I had this realization: I’m not gonna do that, because then they’re gonna all get a chance to live and I’m gonna be the one dead.”
“It made me realize I had gotten down to a point where I was thinking about taking my own life because of what other people thought about me,” she continued, “and I realized, ‘OK, what do I really think is important? What do I want here?’ I had that realization pretty young, and that birthed Doechii.”
Nowadays, Doechii is not only alive, but she’s thriving. The rapper made history as the third woman to win the Best Rap Album Grammy award for her 2024 mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal.
Recalling that moment, Doechii described the rollercoaster of emotions, as winning the award had also come after a tough period of stress and hard work. “The moment leading up to the category that I was excited about – best rap album – and the moment Cardi B was presenting the award, and she opened up the envelope… that’s when all the nerves were, like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t! I don’t know what’s going to happen right now,’” she recalled.
“And then all of the emotions I felt had been building up over the past couple of months – because I’ve been working so hard and I’m so tired – just came over me, and it all came full circle. It was crazy. I felt like I was in a dream.”
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