Bisexual star Doechii reveals backstory and the meaning behind her stage name

LGBTQ+ rapper Doechii has opened up about her road to stardom and the meaning behind her stage name.

Born Jaylah Ji’mya Hickmon, Doechii is the name that she goes by professionally. She started writing poetry and rap while in high school, and making music in 2014, before going on to release her debut song “Girls” on SoundCloud in 2016, under the username @Iamdoechii.

But the name Doechii came to be years earlier, when she was in the “sixth or seventh grade”.

She has previously told Vulture that she decided “to become someone new” after being bullied, writing: “I am Doechii,” in her diary. “It just came to me: Jaylah might’ve been getting bullied but I decided Doechii wouldn’t stand for that shit. My whole attitude was different. It stuck.”

More recently, she told Dazed magazine about the bulling she suffered as a youngster, saying she “always knew [she was] dope as f***”, but the harassment made her question that temporarily.

“I was in a position where I thought about killing myself because the bullying was so bad. Then I had this realisation: I’m not gonna do that because then they’re gonna all get a chance to live and I’m gonna be the one dead.

“It made me realise I had gotten to a point where I was thinking about taking my own life because of what other people thought about me, and I realised: ‘OK, what do I really think is important? What do I want here?’ I had that realisation pretty young, and that birthed Doechii.”

The bullying made her feel she had to tone down her interests and personality to fit in, which she did, “becoming less” of herself “to make them comfortable”, she added.

“That wasn’t truly who I was. I was brilliant and I’ve always been stunning.”

Now, it looks as if she’s having the last laugh, having made history as the third woman in history to win a Grammy for best rap album.

When did Doechii come out as LGBTQ+?

Doechii is openly bisexual, coming out publicly in 2022 during an interview with GQ, admitting that she hadn’t always felt comfortable being out or talking about her sexuality.

“I started becoming comfortable with it when I started getting more gay friends. I always knew that I was queer, bisexual. But I didn’t really feel comfortable talking about it because nobody around me was gay. So, it’s not like I was hiding it but I also wasn’t fully embracing it,” she said.

The singer told Gay Times last year that she was in a relationship with a woman and was “very, very aware from an early age” about her love for women, but that it was difficult to embrace her sexuality because of her background: she grew up within the Church and her religion didn’t accept being LGBTQ+.

“I’m a Black woman from the South, so it’s different. There’s a lot of racism and homophobia, so it’s hard, it’s very, very hard. Even though I was aware, I didn’t feel as comfortable until I started surrounding myself with more gay friends,” she said.

It was meeting gay friends at a performing arts school that led her to feel “safe” and “normal” and able to be more open about who she was. However, she insists that never lied about being bisexual, she just “couldn’t walk around as proud” as she wanted to.

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