Doechii Continues to Get Good Looks With Woman of the Year Honor
While hip-hop is having its resurgence now, Doechii is one of the rappers pushing it back to its rightful spot at the top. The Florida native has found a place to grow in a genre that has accepted her from the start. These last few months have been a constant flow of accomplishments and opportunities for the rap star.
She won Best Rap Album for her critically acclaimed mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal at the 2025 Grammy Awards, earned Outstanding New Artist at the 2025 NAACP Image Awards, performed alongside one of the esteemed MCs she grew up listening to: Ms. Lauryn Hill, and dominated Paris Fashion Week in divine Sam Wolf-styled designs. The 26-year-old self-proclaimed Swamp Princess continues to get all the good looks with an honor for Billboard Woman of the Year for 2025.
Billboard announced her prestigious recognition on Monday (March 10), ahead of its annual Women in Music event, where Doechii will receive the honor on March 29 at the YouTube Theater at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, Calif. Two years ago, the rapper walked away with the Rising Star award at the same event, indicating she was on a path toward taking over. She’s shown and proved incredibly since then; but this is nothing new.
Doechii’s creative flair, compelling charisma and captivating artistry was witnessed 10 years ago over on YouTube. Her very first post on the platform features her singing a cover of “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?,” from the Disney movie Frozen. From there, she offered an inside look at her life: the good, the bad and the ugly. Moving into her own place, getting fired, thrift hauls, story times and more, Doechii was vlogging it all. She was a YouTuber extraordinaire. As people engaged with her content, she also brought them along on her artist journey.
Her Coven Music Sessions, in which she recorded songs while sitting on her bed, led to the sonic gem “Anxiety,” her flip on singer Gotye’s 2011 classic “Somebody That I Used to Know.” She officially released the song last week. The Swamp, the name she affectionately calls her fan base, was ecstatic. Real ones knew it was a hit when she posted it back on YouTube in 2020.
But rapping was always at the heart of her music, displayed on early standout tracks “Girls,” “Spookie Coochie,” “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake” and “What’s Your Name?.” Projects like Coven Music Session, Vol. 1 in 2019, and Oh The Places You’ll Go in 2020, offered promise of her star potential. The same month Doechii signed to one of hip-hop’s most respected indie labels, Top Dawg Entertainment, in 2022, Doechii dropped the lifted ode “Persuasive;” she was outta here. The multi-hyphenate introduced everyone who was late to the party that she was a rapping, singing, dancing and hit-making force to be reckoned with by way of the song and its accompanying video.
What followed was bigger and better after that. The controversial video for her track “Crazy,” in which she bares it all while flaunting a gun as chaos (and other nude women) surrounds her, her first Billboard Hot 100 hit “What It Is (Block Boy)” and the Alligator Bites Never Heal era. The mixtape is a masterful showcase of Doechii being both a student of hip-hop and one of its more riveting new teachers with her entertaining flows, raw anecdotes and lively delivery. “Denial Is a River,” “Nissan Altima” and “Wait” are proof of that. She locked in a Billboard 200 spot at No. 14 for the tape, and climbed the Billboard Hot 100 with “Denial Is a River” and “Nissan Altima.”
Music fans outside the culture are just now catching on to Doechii’s great wave. But that’s how it goes. XXL put her on the cover of the magazine in 2022, as part of its annual Freshman Class, and even then, some of hip-hop was still late to her party. Better late than never though. The elite MC has become the “it” girl for all the right reasons. Being named Woman of the Year is an esteemed feat and a sign of her well-deserved time in the spotlight in 2025. A year prior to her being an XXL Freshman, Doechii told this very website in an interview for The Break, “I am going to be pop culture, period.” Mission accomplished.