Doechii wants to bring back tradition, the “heart of hip-hop”

Doechii‘s latest project, Alligator Bites Never Heal, is largely influenced by hip-hop and her desire to bring back the genre’s traditions.

“When people are listening to this project, they’re really witnessing me reconnect with my roots. I learned how to rap through boom bap beats, through classic beats. My first rap that I ever made was a diss track,” she says in an interview with Apple Music’s Ebro Darden, adding that her sobriety journey helped her rediscover her love of hip-hop. “With me kinda coming back to myself … I kinda re-fell in love with hip-hop. And realized that there is a sense of tradition in hip-hop that I really want to represent and bring back.”

“There is importance in tradition. I feel like it is important for us to uphold the heart of hip-hop, which is lyrical composition, it is skill, it is wittiness, but it is also talking about our feelings, being honest about what we’re going through and connecting us as people,” Doechii continued. “I feel like, especially in the time of an economic recession, people need to feel things right now and we need to talk about it. And we need to do it through rap, which is why I chose the sonical direction that I chose.”

Doechii adds she wants to take fans “back to this classic space in hip-hop and just remind people of the traditional roots of where this started” while pushing the culture forward in her own way.

With hip-hop on her mind, it’s no surprise the people currently on her playlist are rappers in the genre. Doechii told Ebro she’s listening to MF Doom, Westside Gunn, Tyler, The Creator and Jay-Z.