Doechii @ Village Underground

Floridian singer and rapper Doechii closed off the Europe leg of her sold out Alligator Bites Never Heal Tour in London’s Village Underground, the second of two London shows, both of which sold out within minutes of ticket release. This tour so far has felt like a celebratory lap on a project that earned her the praise of fellow acclaimed rappers such as Doja Cat, Tyler, The Creator and her TDE labelmate Kendrick Lamar. This tour reiterated to the world that not only is Doechii creative in the studio, she’s also a force to be reckoned with on the stage.

The self-proclaimed Swamp Queen preempted her arrival on stage with a swamp themed set true to her name and sounds of cicadas and crickets before she bursts on stage (on time, I might add) in a blazer jacket, glasses and wooden beads on her cornrows to ‘BOOM BAP’. The crowd is immediately locked in, rapping every single word along with her, even as she flows smoothly through to ‘DENIAL IS A RIVER’.

Not only is Doechii able to command the stage and crowd with ease, she is also exactly as personable and quirky as her music suggests, the lack of vocal backing track allowing her and DJ Miss Milan, both armed with mics to banter with the audience, bringing an audience member on stage with her and awarding them a tiara for dancing with her to ‘Alter Ego’, encouraging us to ‘huh… huh’ with her before she jumps into ‘Crazy’, even serenading us with a couple bars of Michael Jackson’s ‘Human Nature’ while singing ‘WAIT’.

Just when we thought she was done, she plays ‘Balloons’, the song she features on on Tyler, The Creator’s album ‘Chromakopia’, which released that morning, sending the audience into a new frenzy of screaming and dancing, the usual steady stream of people leaving at the end of a show, immediately halting and turning to watch and listen. Even after this, she still gives us an encore of ‘Yucky Blucky Fruitcake’ before she sends us, buzzing and elated, back into the streets of Shoreditch.

If there’s one thing Doechii wanted the crowd to take from this show, it’s that she’s just getting started. She mentions ‘Alligator Bites Never Heal’ is just a mixtape and the album is on the way so we’ll have to keep watching to see what her next move is and hopefully, we’ll find out in the form of a new album sooner rather than later.