You know, it’s been a little minute since we have had a chat. We’ve been getting some calls….
Nortey Dowuona: One of the fun parts of becoming a Doechii fan has been watching her slowly control the planet through the power of her performances. Doechii, unlike many newly christened rap ladies, has smartly found a massive lane wide open. IanJames, Joey Hamhock and Banser make a simple organ stab over simple soft-focus drums that sounds enough like elder rap of the late ’90s (which needs a more compelling and lively avatar than the now-legendary Rapsody, who is now certified, stamped, and decamped to the Apple Music Zane Lowe publicity machine). Doechii, a multi-dimensional rapper, easily fills this with a silly, De La Soul-type rap about her rising success that treats the darker parts of that rise as blithe jokes, some of which hit (“whoopsy, made an oopsy”) and some of which don’t (that little ramble about being on the white horse). In lesser hands this would easily crumple into a flimsy Joyner Lucas parody, but Doechii has the charisma, humor and sincerity to make all these simple, straightforward pieces unlock the doors that “What It Is” or “Booty Drop” could not. I wish her good luck in taking over the world, a success that I know will only be thwarted by behind-the-scenes shenanigans. If Moosa does Doechii like he did Jimi Tents and Reason, I will —
[10]
Melody Esme: A major highlight from 2024’s greatest hip-hop record, this would be stellar in concept alone: an “I’m back, bitch” single (credit for the term: Todd in the Shadows) in the form of a trauma-dump rather than a boast. Doechii tells the story of the years since she first blew up in the form of a heavy, TMI therapy session, complete with cheating, burnout, drug use, and property damage. Imagine if Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers was funny and, crucially, fun. On the best moment of the song, and possibly the entire mixtape, she goes on the defensive: “I like pills, I like drugs/I like gettin’ money, I like strippers, I like to fuck/I like day-drinking and day parties and Hollywood/I like doin’ Hollywood shit, snort it, probably would/What can I say? The shit works, it feels good/And my self-worth’s at an all-time low.” As a gal whose only plan for the future is becoming gayer and more unhinged, I feel those bars in my soul. All that said, she really should have known how the “girl was really a dude” line would read without context. But she gets a pass… this time.
[9]
Alex Clifton: Personal and raw but also extremely funny — tell me you didn’t laugh the first time you heard the breathing exercise at the end. I’m chronically incapable of confronting bad stuff with anything other than bad puns, but Doechii doesn’t just crack jokes here; she weaves an entire story complete with a therapist character and somehow manages to do it all under three minutes. Fuckin’ slaps.
[8]
Andrew Karpan: Gliding through a Rocky montage of hit records and emotional betrayals, Doechii’s voice has a reflexive snappiness, a generational avatar for going through it. The way the breathing exercise at the end explodes into a Nicki Minaj impersonation is illuminating. As is the version of the song Doechii does with Issa Rae, who impersonates Doechii’s alter-ego therapist so well that I can’t listen to the song anymore without seeing it, which is a plus.
[8]
Daniel Monteshenko: A really interesting technical storytelling performance, but God it goes over my head to want to hear this more than once. BONUS: the hyperventilating is now, like all things, a TikTok dance trend! (TikTok also goes over my head.)
[5]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: This is some whimsical bullshit. I’d hate it if I weren’t already embarrassingly in the tank for Doechii, but the fact that this works at all is testament to her extreme charisma. Any old schmuck can make thrilling fast raps or grimy dance raps, but to take a half-baked cornball theater kid routine and turn it into a sharp, genuinely funny single takes real talent. It’s not perfect — the “whoopsy” bit makes me roll my eyes every time she does it — but each thrill and bauble here is compelling enough to justify the whole.
[8]
Claire Davidson: Doechii is so obviously talented that I hardly even need to mention how impressive her performance is here. As of writing this blurb, she has just become only the third woman to win the Grammy for Best Rap Album, a (depressing) mantle of which she is more than worthy: her surplus charisma allows her to navigate frustration, bravado, and self-conscious deflection without missing a step. Her technical precision can’t be overstated, either, as she nimbly dances over a beat that both accentuates her triumphant stride and serves as its own ironic joke when contrasted with her eventually bleaker stories. As drastically and successfully as “Denial is a River” swings across tones, though, I do wish that the song had more of a deeper revelation to punctuate her struggles, rather than the funny but gimmicky “breathing exercise” that concludes the song. Also, while I do understand that this song is framed as a tell-all therapy session, and that the lyrics are more judgmental of this guy’s dishonesty than his sexuality, Doechii’s choice to make a dispirited punchline out of her ex cheating on her with another man strikes me as a bit tasteless. That Doechii is openly queer, and seems to have no problem with dating bisexual men in real life, only makes this decision more puzzling.
[7]
Hannah Jocelyn: She could have worded that one bar better about the guy cheating on her with another man — I wrote this song off as transphobic at first! Otherwise, this is nearly perfect. I almost wonder whether a Missy Elliot comparison is too obvious, but they’re both highly theatrical, which I prefer over the more deliberately effortless rap we’ve been getting for the last few years. But “Denial is a River” gets a high score for one reason: her delivery of soup beans, which makes me want to make an edit where every line is replaced with soup beans. (“Soup beans, made a soup beans/100, 000-dollar soups made me soup beans.”) Maybe I’d give this a [10] if it turned out the dude was cheating on her with bean sprouts.
[8]
Jel Bugle: A good introduction/narrative song — reminds me of Millie Jackson. I enjoyed the squeaky voice of the interviewer, and the back and forth. Good to hear quirk making its way into modern songs.
[7]
Al Varela: I really love music where it feels like one or two rappers are just having a conversation. Framing this single around a therapy session where Doechii recaps her career and all the ways her past comes back to bite her makes for some of the most engaging storytelling I’ve heard in rap in a while, especially from someone mainstream enough to have charting hits. From the way Doechii abruptly admits her life is pretty bad after bragging about all her achievements, to the friendly banter between Doechii and her therapist that ends in a bizarre breathing exercise, the story is just genuinely funny.
[9]
Mark Sinker: There should of course be a Grammy just for best looped grunting and gasping in a song — every single year they could have different half-recognised comedians snatching it away from Fontaines DC. Meanwhile, in back of a long melancholy Lynch binge, I’m hearing versions of his moves everywhere: like giving your therapist a cartoon chipmunk voice to drug deeper into your chaotic emotional state (or how you choose to present it, I guess). Make us stop short before an ancient super-corny pop-cultural device, and that’s maybe where the clarity we don’t want to process can slip through the over-ignored surface. Because out here at the surviving Weird Twitter wing of pop, realism is often a consequence of the serenely bludged processing we blink at a little.
[9]
Katherine St. Asaph: I am slightly worried about the number of times I have broken into “I mean, fuck, I like pills, I like drugs, I like getting money, I like strippers, I like to fuck…”, and in the spirit of this song I will not introspect on that any further.
[9]
Taylor Alatorre: 2023 is a foreign country, 23 hours ago an unbridgeable chasm. Why can’t my arms reach back in time and jerk my head around to prevent me from entering that room, or applying for that loan, or avoiding that funeral, when the long-armed consequences of those past decisions can be seen and felt and rhymed about in the graceless present? Why is Doechii able to make “whoopsie, made an oopsie” sound as hard as anything coming out of Griselda Records?
[10]
Leah Isobel: As finely crafted as “Denial is a River” is, that first verse still makes me cringe (even as Doechii has gone on record to clarify her meaning). It’s an imprecise bit of storytelling in a song that is otherwise razor-sharp, slowly breaking itself down until even the rhythms are knives pointed back at its performer.
[7]
Alfred Soto: If Eminem still needs a reminder of how to voice characters in song, he might give “Denial is a River” a listen. Not the best track on the “mixtape,” but one of the few that encapsulates her powers.
[8]
Julian Axelrod: I never expected this conversational self-interrogating one-act play to become Doechii’s signature song from an album bursting at the seams with potential pop smashes. Then again, there are a lot of things about Doechii that we didn’t see coming. It’s been a minute since a rapper with this much casual virtuosity and clarity of vision has had this kind of momentum, and she’s not wasting any of it. Do you know how talented you have to be to take what’s essentially an Eminem song concept and make it this good?
[9]
Ian Mathers: Funny in a harrowing kind of way, and vice versa. It is in fact a talent to take almost three minutes of exposition and make it this compelling.
[9]