Doechii and Brittany Howard on New Music, Southern Life, Inspiration

T
he artist who is perhaps the best young MC of 2024, Doechii, was sitting off in the corner in a Manhattan rehearsal studio, getting ready to be part of Rolling Stone’s second annual Musicians On Musicians event. So of course she was quietly reading a book about the famous painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. All around her, a band was setting up, getting ready to make magic, as Doechii studied Basquiat’s art in search of visual ideas for her own output, one young Black genius exploring the work of another. She’s already building for the future which includes her wildly anticipated debut album sometime next year. Did I mention that one of the hottest rappers of the year hasn’t released a proper album yet?

Doechii has been grinding for years — there are no overnight successes in the music biz — but in 2024 she exploded thanks to her mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal. She quickly became a lyricist lover’s favorite MC, with her rhymes, her flows, and a voice bursting with a bevy of tones. You may not fully understand Doechii as an artist until you know that she was a theater kid. Once you learn that, you can see where her love of playing characters comes from.

How does Doechii feel about her life as her career ascends rapidly? “It took me a long time to get here,” she says. “A looong time to get here. But yeah, I do feel a little surreal. I wake up and I’m like, what is actually happening right now? I feel like I’m walking on the ceiling and I’m floating, which is a good thing, but I’m also like, where’s the ground?”

Brittany Howard has been flying like that for years. After years as the lead singer of Alabama Shakes, she released her first solo album, Jaime, in 2019 and her second, What Now, in 2024. Howard grew up in Alabama and worked for the United States Postal Service before becoming a star. Now she has five Grammys and a global fanbase.

Howard breezed into the rehearsal space an hour after Doechii arrived, with a whole band and her partner in tow. She quickly set up and got the place feeling like church before easing into an upbeat blues. Both women are powerful performers who own the stage, but where Doechii slinks around and covers every inch, Howard stands in the middle and projects her power like a Baptist preacher shining a light on us. They’re both Southerners and they’re both people who come to music with something deep to say. I asked Howard what she likes about Doechii’s music and she said, “I hear her in her music. I hear her playfulness. I hear her pain. When I listen to her music, I’m hearing a whole person, and I love that. I feel like it’s like going out with your friends, you know what I’m saying?”

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Doechii and Howard met up later on the hallowed stage of the Apollo Theater for an awesome conversation.

Brittany, you’ve been doing this for a minute. You’ve had an amazing career. Can you give a little advice to the young superstar? She does not need any help from any of us, but you have experience.

Brittany Howard: The advice I would give you is always listen to your inner voice about what you do and don’t want to do. I think the most important thing is, we’re out there onstage night after night, giving energy away, and sometimes we get it back a thousandfold and some nights it’s just taking it away from us. So, I feel like my best advice would be to find ways to fill your cup back up while you’re working so hard.

Doechii: Thank you for that, for real. I think that if I’m being brutally honest, I fill my cup up by isolating myself and having solitude. Time to just meditate and spend time with God and process what’s going on. You have to live life to make art, and I think that that’s one of the key elements of how I refill my cup.  

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How do you refill your cup, Brittany?

Howard: My whole thing is spending time with my family. That always fills my cup up. And I’m an Alabama girl, so I like to go fishing. That’s what my dad taught me to do when I was a little girl, and I refound it after having success musically. So I go out in nature and I go fishing.

Doechii: You’re a country girl.

Yeah, you’re from Alabama, Brittany; and Doechii, you’re from Tampa.

Doechii: I’m a Florida girl through and through.

The South has been so important in music and Black music. Why? What is going on in the South that so many amazing musicians are coming out of there still to this day?

Doechii: I can speak for Florida. The culture and the energy in our music scene is just so raw. A lot of our hip-hop is rooted in a lot of party culture and communities coming together. I grew up with cookouts and my mom getting ready and going out with her friends  to day parties and things like that. There’s so much energy and life when the Black community comes together. I feel like that’s where my roots are based in. What about you, Brittany?

Howard: I came from a small town, so we had to make our own entertainment amongst each other. You know what I’m saying? It’s basically what you’re saying. It’s like I had to learn how to play music because otherwise I was going to get in trouble for sure. Those field parties and stuff, acting crazy with some Mad Dog 20/20 out in a farmer’s field. I had to find something to do!

Doechii, I love the way that you use your voice. I like the dynamics, the flows, the ups and downs, the changing of the sound of your voice. This is a little different than a lot of the hip-hop we’ve ever heard.

Doechii:  There’s so many different emotions that I feel like you don’t have to emote in one way. Hip-hop gives you so much room to be animated. I’m a theater kid as well, so I like to create characters. I feel inspired by Busta Rhymes and the way he was able to incorporate theater in his music.  

When you said you’re a theater kid, that unlocked something for me to understand you as an artist, because you are so theatrical in your music.

Doechii: Absolutely, because it’s about stories. I embody the character of whatever story I’m telling. I think that’s important and it’s fun. What I love about theater is that you get to incorporate singing, dancing, acting, rapping, so every time I approach my music, I always try to tell a story and embody as many emotions as I possibly can.

Brittany, you’re also theatrical in your performances. I love the way you fill the space when you perform. I don’t know if you did theater, but I think that is inside of you.

Howard: We had theater for one year in my little county school and I signed up for it and I got the little trophy and everything. It was a piece of paper, it wasn’t a trophy, it was a piece of paper. But I did love it, and I think that’s so cool. It’s like when I’m up here onstage I can become whatever, whoever. And my favorite thing about performing is feeling powerful. I feel like I finally found my space, my place, and I get to embody that.

Do you become a different person on stage?

Howard: I feel like I’m pretty quiet in my everyday life. I can be quiet, I can be reserved. I’m not shy, I’m just observant. But when I’m onstage, I do not care. Whatever I’m singing about, that’s the thing I want to connect to other people in the room about.

What about you, Doechii? Do you become a different person on stage?

Doechii: No, child. I’m like this on and off stage. I’m a drama queen, definitely. But I do think that when I’m onstage, there’s something that gets very quiet about the environment. It’s just me and God. I’m a vessel in that moment and it just feels like a blessing. That’s why I love being onstage more than I like being in the studio because when I’m onstage I can really go somewhere else. I don’t become a different person, but I do leave this place, and I go somewhere else.

Can you talk a little bit about being a woman in this industry? Female MCs are hot to death nowadays, they’re kind of running the game. I know that there’s challenges to being a woman in the industry and there’s gifts to it. So, let’s talk about the ups and downs of it.

Doechii: I think it’s a great time for women, especially in hip-hop music right now. It is a really good time. There are challenges to being in a male-dominated industry. I figured out how to be a leader, how to be stern and respectful, and it’s brought me to where I am now. But I’m just a girl! I’m trying my best.

Howard: Since I came into the industry I’m seeing a lot more women in all different positions of the music industry, including recording and touring. And it makes me so happy because when I was younger, there were so many different aspects of music I wanted to do and I kind of talked myself out of it in a way, because I was like, well, the guys aren’t going to let me, whoever’s running the studio, they’re not going to let somebody like me do this. It was kind of like a defeatist attitude because it was just what I had seen. It did feel like a boys’ club. Now it doesn’t feel so much that way anymore. I feel like we’re being taken very seriously and we’re climbing in positions of the music industry. And, I mean, obviously we got the microphones, you know what I’m saying?

Doechii: Question for you. I just went on my very first tour and I know that you’ve been doing this for quite some time. You also have five Grammys, right?

Howard: Yeah.

Doechii: I am so curious where were you in your career when you received your first Grammy? How did that feel and what do you think brought you to that space?

Howard: It felt really surreal, because I got into music because it was a place where I wasn’t limited. You can be anywhere in the world and make music and express yourself, and that was always my priority to have someplace that is mine that I’m in control of. There’s no limits, there’s no ceiling on it. And I like exploring that space. When we gained success I was in a group, Alabama Shakes, and even though we had been playing these shows and making no money and basically just spending gas money, suddenly I found myself in a space where people want to hear what I have to say. People want to give us awards. And it was a lot. It was happening so quickly, it was so surreal. It was like a dream. And how did I feel? I felt this immense sense that my life was never going to be the same again. And I appreciated that, and it gave me the inspiration to keep making music. I’m supposed to be doing this. I thought so, but now I know.   

Doechii: After all you’ve been through, how do you not get jaded?

Howard: I think there is no absolute answer to that question. I feel like sometimes things are going to get stagnant. You’re going to get used to certain things and then there’s a lot of times where incredible things happen that you were not expecting. And it’s always going to wake up that little girl in you that’s like, “What? I can’t believe this is my life.” It’s always going to be like that. That’s been my experience.