Song You Need: Doechii and Rico Nasty are brilliantly mucky on “Swamp Bitches”

she / her / black bitch is out now.

August 08, 2022
Song You Need: Doechii and Rico Nasty are brilliantly mucky on “Swamp Bitches” Doechii. Photo by Chris Parsons.  

The FADER’s “Songs You Need” are the tracks we can’t stop playing. Check back every day for new music and follow along on our Spotify playlist.

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There's few things more rewarding than a promising artist that's been sharpening her steel. Doechii's 2020 EP Oh The Places You'll Go sought to capitalize on the viral success of "Yucky Blucky Fruitcake," though on other tracks, the Florida artist wasn't as convincing a pop star, an old problem which rappers attempting a crossover often face. Since signing with Top Dawg Entertainment, Doechii's grasp has began to match her reach. Take, for example, the warm house tones of "Persuasive" which improved on "What's Your Name?" from Places, a song that was just a touch too Azealia Banks-indebted. As more music emerged, the songs served as a reintroduction to Doechii spread out across the months.

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"Swamp Bitches," the opening track of Doechii's new EP she / her / black bitch, is more than anything a showcase of Doechii's formidable skills as a rapper and a navigator of her own style. The song kicks off with a psychedelic guitar loop that could have been left on The Alchemist's MPC with Doechii's flow placing her like a cheetah in the tall grass, ready to strike. "I piss fifties and leave the seat up," she says, her voice a nail and her syllables the hammer, "Doechii bottom feeder to Doechii the Don Diva." This range is delivered in the song's beat switches, the first coming 40 seconds in – Doechii's voice leaps up a few octaves into trap queen register, though her bars don't lose any of their bite. She then goes into a fire-breathing, distorted bridge and hands it off to Rico Nasty like the sweetest lay-up; the backboard is shattered, and for the rest of she / her / black bitch, it feels like the shards of glass are still raining over us.

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Song You Need: Doechii and Rico Nasty are brilliantly mucky on “Swamp Bitches”