Doechii says tradition in hip-hop is important, the first rap song was a diss track

TDE's newest rising star sat down with Apple Music's Ebro Darden for a chat about her young career and her critically acclaimed mixtape Alligator bites never heal. Doechii credited her love of golden era rap music as a major influence on the direction she decided to take.

“When people hear this project, they really see me reconnecting with my roots,” he explained. “I learned how to rap through boom beats, through classic beats. My first rap I did was a diss track.”

The 26-year-old then revealed that she taught herself how to rap “through battle rapping” and talked about how sobriety helped her remember why she fell in love with the genre in the first place. “As I'm kind of coming back to myself — recently I've been completely sober: no nicotine, no alcohol, no smoking, no nothing — I just fell in love with Hip-Hop again and realized that there's a sense of tradition in Hip-Hop that I really want to represent and restore”.

He added, “There is importance in tradition. I feel like it's important for us to support the heart of Hip-Hop, which is lyricism, it's skill, it's witty, but it also speaks to our emotions, to be honest about what we go through and connect with as humans.

“I feel like, especially in a time of economic downturn, people have to be feeling things right now and we have to talk about it. And we have to do it through rap, which is why I chose the sound direction I chose. I want to take us back to that classic space in Hip-Hop and just remind people of the traditional roots of where it started – and do it my way and push it forward.”

The Florida native recently announced the Alligator Bites Never Heal tour with a first date on Friday, October 11 in Atlanta.