"My Anxiety" – we got to talk about this Doechii song.

Ms. Doechii, rapper, singer, songwriter extraordinaire, one of the biggest and most promising artists right now on the legendary Top Dog Entertainment hip hop label. I have talked about her on my YouTube channels a handful of times, going back a few years, in fact, way before this recent blowup.

And I have said numerous times, I feel like this person has a lot of potential. Clearly a good lyricist, clearly a talented individual, and it's been great just kind of watching her grow in popularity, especially with hard hitting authentic hip hop tracks like "Denial Is a River" doing as well commercially as they are. That and many other tracks off of her recent Alligator Bites Never Heal mixtape has led to a lot of praise, a lot of accolades, a lot of great feature placements.

Doechii is in demand and definitely one of the most buzzed-about artists right now in mainstream music. There's a real thirst for all Doechii out there right now. So of course, like most mainstream projects out there today, she saw fit to release a deluxe edition of this recent Alligator Bites mixtape. Why not?

The question is though, what to add to it? What Doechii and the label decided was to drop this track called Anxiety, which apparently is a cut that she has been sitting on since like 2019, originally placed onto YouTube, back when obviously she was more obscure and still working on her craft and still on the come up. Like the fact that this track is doing so well and gaining so much attention right now, and it's like 6 years old about is crazy.

So yeah, that's how old the song is. And before I get into what people don't like about it, let me just say from the outset, this is exactly the kind of song that labels and rights holders just love to release. It's a new single with a chorus that has a lot of pop crossover appeal from a hit artist. And it also relies on a big sample interpolation from another very popular song, in this case Gotye, "Somebody That I Used to Know". Because if a track like that hits, you're potentially getting the attention of new listeners of fans of the old song. Plus, I imagine for some artists it like really streamlines the writing process to entirely base a huge chunk of your song off of another song.

But yeah, you guys are in tune with new releases and everything like that. You know, labels love releasing tracks like that these days. This Doechii song just happens to fit within that formula. However, when I first heard it, I liked it. Yeah, I mean, honestly, like, my first reaction to the track was not negative, not even by a long shot.

I did have some close friends express that they couldn't really get past the fact that the. The Gotye sample is, like, so prominent in the song and it's not varied up in any significant way and so on and so forth, which I do get on some level, if you're really married to that track. And it feels weird to kind of hear that song and instrumental in a different context with do rapping and singing on it.

I mean, when I have heard the track kind of played organically out and about in the world, it does feel like a little bit of a bait and switch. Because, you know, "Somebody That I Used to Know" is a song that gets played in a lot of places publicly. And now these days when I hear that intro, I don't quite know whether or not I'm going to be listening to Gotye or Doechii. I know for sure there are probably some listeners who are a little aggravated by that unmet expectation. But yeah, again, I liked the track, in my opinion.

Is it like a top three, top five cut off of Alligator Bites Never Heal? No, the song is fine. The verses are solid. And yet again, Doechii proves herself to be as good a singer as she is a rapper. I mean, I didn't think it was going to be a song that would appeal to everybody, but I just did not really foresee the insanely viral and polarizing reactions that this song has been gaining over the past few weeks.

And it's really been reaching a boiling point to where I can't really go anywhere on social media without stumbling across some person tweeting about how much they hate the song. Thousands and thousands and thousands of likes and comments and engagements of people just echoing that same sentiment. And now the hate for this track has unfortunately, like, escalated to a point to where there's, like, social capital in publicly announcing that you don't like it. And if you say it, there's tons of thoughtless drones that will, like, jump into the comments and be like, yeah, 'I think it sucks too.'

Even our favorite streamer on this channel, XQC, has come out as a Doechii "Anxiety" hater. Not only tweeting that this track is a terrible use of the original song, but going as far as to say Doechii's music itself is garbage on stream.

But yeah, an unfortunate side effect of a song like this getting as much hate as it is is that morons such as XQC will come out of the woodwork to pretend they have music taste and valid reason disliking something when honestly you're just hating for clout. Take it from a professional hater. I know when people are doing that shit.

With that being said though, again, I understand why not everybody would be into this track because maybe they don't want to hear that Gotye song done in a different way. The song has also been charting well recently too. It peaked at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, which has led to a lot of organic play out and about has led to a lot of playlisting.

So there is kind of an overplay and overexposure factor, I think, happening with this track. And while I do think the song is good, it's not necessarily the type of track that I feel like warrants this amount of replay. The reason being Doechii's vocals and words on this track are so bold and thoughtful and in your face that you can't really tune the topic of the track out like you can with most pop or rap songs in the mainstream these days.

I mean, think about it. How many pop hits are out there today that you can basically vibe to in such a way to where you don't really need to confront what the inspiration for what the song is topically, frankly, that's the vast majority of mainstream music. And Doechii has somehow landed us with not just this, but multiple hits at this point where she's like really digging into listeners heads and being like, this is what the song is about. And you're going to think about what the fucking song is about as I'm singing and rapping about it, which I think is something a lot of casual music fans aren't necessarily ready for all the time. Especially when it comes to a topic such as anxiety, something that both people who do and don't struggle with it might not necessarily volunteer to want to listen to a song about.

But outside of those characteristics, I have a really hard time rationalizing what it is exactly about this track that people just hate with their soul, with their heart, you could say lyrically it's too upfront and obvious, but like so many other tracks that are just as popular are and don't get nearly this much hate.

"Last night we let the liquor talk." Like are you fucking kidding me? Or "Tipsy, a Bar Song", which I think comparatively is at least two or three times more annoying and a much worse and more. More novelty rehash of an original song. And culturally we've let that slide. But we're having a total meltdown over this song about anxiety from a rapper who is doing a thing that rappers do. They rap over things. They pick an instrumental, could be anything, a sample, a beat or a song borrowed from somewhere else and then they rap on that thing.

Back in the day, that's what was so cool about like Lil Wayne. It was so sick, so cool. Peak of the mixtape era. That guy would rap over anything. And for me at least my read of this track when I first heard it was like, oh, Doechii's kind of doing that, but in a bit more of a pop context. She has her own verses and own topic and own direction in mind. And she's just kind of taking a very familiar instrumental and spinning the whole thing into a song of her own. And it is an actual legitimate focus song, not just some random freestyle, which for sure would also be cool, but she actually completed it into a tune of its own, which creatively speaking, I feel like is respectable.

Again, I don't think everyone is going to like the song, nor should everyone like the song, but I just think the hate and negativity is a little outsized for something that honestly is frankly, kind of innocent and just sitting there doing nothing. Like they're way more toxic, harmful and ridiculous things musically going on in the music industry these days than this song about anxiety.

To tie this up, I will say I do have at least a few concerns about Doechii's career and this song moving forward from here because the track is getting so popular and gaining so much viral spread. And clearly her and the label are leaning into that with the release of this latest music video, which I'm not as crazy about the video as I am the song, but that's another story.

But yeah, I'm kind of afraid of two things. Doechii has so much potential from here and she's still gaining exposure and new fans. And I'm afraid that the hate behind this track, which, I mean, it's very loud and very annoying, as annoying as I'm sure a lot of these people think the song is, unfortunately, I imagine there are a lot of people who the hate for this track and this track, which might not necessarily be the best first introduction to Doechii, is in fact serving as the first introduction to Doechii. And I would hate to think that there are people who are going to be turned off to her and her music entirely from here forward just because of this one fucking song.

On top of that, while I do think this song is cool and is interesting and I'm glad that she did it and it saw the light of day, I feel like with the track being as old as it is, she creatively is in a far different place now. At this point, I worry that the commercial success of this track will create pressure for her to go in this direction and try to work out songs and song ideas that create a similar type of success, which I would absolutely hate. And I feel like a lot of music listeners would just like see coming from a mile away. And frankly, I think Doechii is too talented to try to rehash past successes.

But again, in the age of streaming, there is always going to be pressure to make every single stupid thing you do scale. And I just hope that Doechii and her collaborators and the label don't fully give into that pressure going forward to when it does actually become like album time.

Honestly, I did kind of breathe a sigh of relief when I saw that this track was just like being tagged onto the Alligator Bites mixtape and thankfully not saved for some future project or something like that. But yeah, with all that being said, I just find the hate and vitriol this song is seeing right now to be kind of insane, unwarranted, given what it is. And on top of it, I know a lot of you guys are just posting how much you hate the song because it'll get you attention. Get a goddamn grip, that's all I'm gonna say.

Let me know what your thoughts on this track are. Do you like it? Do you hate it? And what do you think about the reaction to it?

Anthony Fantano, Doechii, Anxiety, Forever.