“So we’re gonna try a breathin’ exercise, okay? (Alright, word). When I breathe (okay), you breathe,” hip-hop artist Doechii says in her song “Denial Is A River.”
She sharply huffs and puffs, attempting to rid herself of the big, bad wolf named anxiety. But the breathing exercise doesn’t conquer what weighs heavy on the Florida rapper’s chest – it only exasperates the anxiety.
The 26-year-old, born Jaylah Ji’mya Hickmon, is one of the year’s most singular Black female rappers in the game. Even the self-proclaimed King of Rap, Kendrick Lamar, called her “the hardest” rapper out there. Her uniqueness is slowly infiltrating and occupying space in pop music because of the artist’s attention to detail and intention.
Doechii’s third mixtape, “Alligator Bites Never Heal,” was released in Aug. 2024 but seems to be gaining momentum nearly six months after its release. Some of this new traction and attention is because Doechii was nominated for three Grammys in November, receiving the nod for Best New Artist.
Since then, Doechii has dropped an exhilarating Tiny Desk performance for NPR, released a ‘00s Black sitcom-inspired music video for “Denial Is A River” starring Zack Fox — the rapper and “Abbott Elementary” favorite — and influencer Rickey Thompson, and furthered the success of the track via a collaboration with Issa Rae — who voiced the singer’s inner monologue, which paralleled Rae’s “Insecure” character’s own coping mechanism – rapping to herself in the mirror to quell her anxious, irrational and instructive thoughts.
That’s the battle most Black women grapple with – a fight within themselves and nobody else. At least that’s what it feels like in my mind as I’m in weekly therapy to assuage my clinical anxiety. But Doechii’s “Denial Is A River” is the closest a person has come to describing the rollercoaster ride of emotions anxiety can take a person through – especially if you are actively trying to ignore the incessant voices.
“Denial Is A River” is a portrait of a Black woman in distress
In the conversational track, Doechii’s flow takes a trip to the ‘90s. The old-school hip-hop song is very reminiscent of the spoken word cadence of Lauryn Hill.
The self-aware rapper goes shot for shot between herself and her subconscious. Doechii opens the track telling herself, “You know it’s been a lil’ minute since you and I have had a chat.” This version of herself is worried about her so she asks, “Why don’t you just tell me what’s been goin’ on?”
That’s when the floodgates blow wide open and Doechii becomes undone. It’s almost like the first time I ever had a real good cry in therapy, realizing the traumatic sources of all my pretzeled thoughts, or when I experienced a funeral for my past selves, which my therapist called “a type of ego death.”
She rattles off, “nice, clean, n***a did me dirtier than laundry (Than laundry).” Then the rapper chronicles that her ex-boyfriend cheated on her with another man and she “got my lick back, turned a n***a to a knick-knack (To a knick-knack).”
If more Black women were honest about their mental health journeys, we’d all be able to loosen the grasp of the unattainable need for perfection and validation-driven anxiety.
But her inner monologue interjects again, telling Doechii to be present and “take a second and kind of unpack what’s happened to you/You know, this guy cheated on you and—” However, Doechii continues rapping like nothing’s affected her because she is finally finding success in her career. “Nah, f**k it,” she says.
The disconnection from her emotions to her body is clear when she says, “I’m movin’ so fast, no time to process/But we ain’t got time to stop, the charts need us (And they do).”
She hops to 2023. Her career is thriving, she has multiple TikTok hits and her financial success and freedom fuels her. She raps, “I’m stackin’ lots of cheese and makin’ money/My grass is really green,” but suddenly her internal world shifts like a crack in the Earth’s core.
She relents, “Honestly, I can’t even f***ing cap no more/ This is a really dark time for me/I’m goin’ through a lot.”
At this point in the song, Doechii’s anxiety and depression are palpable, beating alongside the song’s production. She begins to argue with herself and becomes defensive when asked about her vices.
So she rattles off a laundry list of her coping mechanisms in the fast life. She raps:
“I mean, f**k, I like pills, I like drugs/I like gettin’ money, I like strippers, I like to f**k/I like day-drinkin’ and day parties in Hollywood/I like doin’ Hollywood s**t, snort it, probably would/What can I say? The s**t works, it feels good.”
But it all crumbles like a Hidden Valley granola bar when she admits, “My self-worth’s at an all-time low.”
Letting go of the anxiety, from the perspective of an anxious Black woman
This is a reality Black women are all too familiar with in their day-to-day lives. A study from the National Institute of Health found that 14.6% of Black women have depression, 23.7% have anxiety and overall nearly 40% have a mental disorder. However, the Psychiatric Times unveiled that even though Black women have these mental disorders, “Black women are only about half as likely to seek care” in comparison to white women.
Just like Doechii gradually sinking under the weight of her depression, neuroticism, trauma and even ambition, I too also spent most of my adult life (I’m only 25) pretending like I had it all figured out – like I was too cool to feel anything. Or that if I ignored my anxiety just like Doechii, I could pretend I was thriving.
Maybe because I was told as a child to stop crying or that mental health issues are usually prayed away in my upbringing and community. But I was never allowed the luxury to stop and feel because of the incredibly high standard everyone had for me and that I had for myself. The burden felt like a weighted blanket placed around my body and mind. It was like a mental escape room and I repeatedly chose the wrong exit.
For a split second though, I’d ponder if I should let all the noise around me quiet and really feel the emotions under the surface . . . What would it feel like? Would it be like an emotional bomb radiated through my own body? Would I be able to go on if my emotions trumped everything?
With the help of my Black female therapist, I’ve begun working on this. Therapy has aided me in uncovering that unrelenting strength is beautiful but sometimes for Black women it is a projection of fear and debilitating anxiety.
This is why for the first time in my adult life, I’m starting to accept that maybe life’s ambiguity is actually what makes it so devastating but also exhilarating. To feel those highs and lows, Black women shouldn’t default to living in a state of numbness.
It may be easier said than done, but if more Black women were honest about their mental health journeys like high-profile figures like Doechii or even Megan Thee Stallion, we’d all be able to loosen the grasp of the unattainable need for perfection and validation-driven anxiety. Sometimes there’s no respectable way to say you’re struggling but that’s the thing about vulnerability — it can’t be neatly packaged up.
Sometimes you just need to repeat a Megan Thee Stallion bar like “I’m a bad b***h, and I got bad anxiety” and realize you don’t have all the answers but life’s better that way — it’s brighter that way.
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