Doechii is an artist currently experiencing the breakout year of her career. After first gaining some recognition with a few songs released on TikTok and her independently-released debut mixtape, 2019’s Coven Music Session, Vol. 1, she went on to sign with one of the hottest record labels in the music business, Top Dawg Entertainment. In 2024, she released her full-length debut with the label, her sophomore mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal, which led to her winning Best Rap Album at the 2025 Grammy Awards and officially put her name on the map for a lot of fans. For those who don’t pay attention to TikTok or maybe slept on the mixtape when it first dropped, the Grammy win felt like an overnight transformation for Doechii, going from a relatively unknown emcee from Tampa Bay to becoming just the third woman to ever win the Best Rap Album Grammy trophy. Now bringing her Tampa Bay pride to the rest of the world, Doechii has set off on the Live From The Swamp Tour, with this stop in Toronto being her first time ever performing in Ontario.

The tour kicked off earlier in the week in Chicago before landing in Toronto on a Friday night for just its second stop. It was a packed house at the sold-out Coca-Cola Coliseum, as fans of all ages filled the arena, many wearing partial school uniforms to fit the theme Doechii posted on her Instagram ahead of the tour; she’d be taking us to class and dropping Hip-Hop lessons throughout her show. With Doechii being a new artist, most of the fans looked to be in their teens or early 20s, but there were also a few old-school heads in the building who caught the vibe off of Alligator Bites Never Heal, as the music seamlessly blends that ’90s boom-bap sound with the new wave energy.

The show would get started with one of Doechii’s labelmates at TDE hailing from Dallas, Texas: Kal Banx. While Kal Banx has produced for other artists on both TDE and Dreamville Records, this would be my first time experiencing any of his own music as the primary emcee. For plenty of fans and even himself, it would be a new experience, as he’d mention towards the end of his set that this was his first time going on tour and just his second time performing most of the songs he did. As a first time listener, he didn’t really do anything captivating for me in terms of bars or lyricism, but he did have good energy and stage presence, getting the crowd to join in waving their arms and bouncing to the beats. Considering he’s an up-and-coming artist still developing his stage presence, Kal Banx was decent as the tour’s opener, but one had to wonder if a tour of this magnitude (and ticket price) was the right setting for him to be performing in.

Kal Banx would be followed by a DJ set with an eclectic mix of 2000s Hip-Hop and Pop records being spun, and an intermission for the stage to get set up for Doechii’s performance. The stage design for Doechii’s set would include a huge boombox that would open up in the middle for her to make her entrance, along with a pair of playground slides on either end for her use to get between the top and bottom platforms of the stage. A video would play on the jumbo screens emphasizing the school theme, and eventually Doechii would get rolled out to the front of the stage sitting in a classroom desk on wheels, where she’d perform the Alligator Bites intro, “Stanka Pooh,” to set things off.

Right from the beginning, you could tell this was going to be more than your typical Hip-Hop performance, as every movement Doechii made was choreographed to the beat, as she went from bouncing in her seat to sitting and posing on the desk as she rapped. The early part of her setlist was strictly for the Hip-Hop heads, and those who needed to be schooled, as she’d incorporate beats and samples from Wu-Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.A.M.” and Nas’ “The World Is Yours” into her performances of “Bullfrog” and “Boiled Peanuts,” both tracks certified head-nodders even without the remixing. Now standing atop the desk, she’d proudly proclaim “welcome to Doechii’s school of Hip-Hop!!” before introducing her DJ, Miss Milan, who’d get the whole crowd waving their arms to that “Boiled Peanuts” beat.

Doechii seemed to be knocking out her most energetic tracks at the beginning of her set, as she’d next get into one of the most hype performances of the night with “Nissan Altima,” this time showing off her dance moves from the top platform of the stage while nailing the rapid-fire flow. She’d be joined by her twin sisters as her backup dancers, and DJ Miss Milan would flip the beat towards the end of the track to a similar sounding sample with Missy Elliott’s “She’s A Bitch,” giving the song a new twist with an old vibe. For me personally, Doechii had performed three of my top five favourite songs off the album back to back, all remixed with some throwback samples; the performance was off to a hot start and there was no telling where she’d take it next.

While Doechii could have simply performed the entire Alligator Bites Never Heal album to fill her setlist, she did make room for plenty of older tracks and standalone singles I’ll admit I wasn’t familiar with. Some highlights included the Electronica-influenced track “Alter Ego,” which may have been the most energetic performance of the night with the way it had the whole crowd jumping, and the song “Nosebleeds” released to celebrate Doechii’s Grammy win, turning Kanye West’s 2005 Grammy acceptance speech into a dope hook, “will she ever lose? I guess we’ll never know!!” Another highlight was the single “Anxiety,” which she performed over an alternate beat that featured a heavy guitar, giving it a ton of added energy.

Getting back to the Alligator Bites album, she’d rock fan favourites like the aggressive “Boom Bap,” where she spits fierce raps about frustrations over being boxed in to one particular genre or sound, and kept that aggression up on “GTFO.” Channeling her inner “Woo-Hah”-era Busta Rhymes, Doechii continued on with “Catfish,” showing off her flexibility as she literally bent over backwards while nailing the flow. Throughout the night Doechii’s performance would have video interludes with different “lessons” that fit the theme of the batch of songs she’d perform next, and the next video highlighted the art of storytelling, which got the crowd hyped as we all knew which song Doechii had that best showcased that skill: “Denial Is A River.”

Joined by DJ Miss Milan at the top of the stage, Doechii got into an epic performance of the single that put many fans onto her music in the first place. Miss Milan would play the alternate character in the story as Doechii spit her raps about a breakup and the rough few years she had prior to Alligator Bites Never Heal, all with choreographed movements across the stage, and of course getting the crowd involved for that breathing exercise at the end of the song. Many would think this would be the epic closer to the show, but Doechii had a few more joints to rock, with the instrumental from “Denial Is A River” smoothly transitioning into Tyler, The Creator’s “Balloon,” which was actually my first time ever hearing Doechii rap. She would nail her featured verse on the song, cranking the energy up as she reached that scream at the end of her verse.

With those last few songs having the energy in the building high, Doechii would smooth it out to close out the show, getting everyone to light up their phones and sing along as she performed “Wait.” Throughout her performance she’d have little samples and nods to iconic artists who came before her, and for “Wait” she’d go a step further and do a full Michael Jackson tribute, transitioning the song into a cover of “Human Nature” that she sang beautifully. As the saying goes, Doechii’s whole performance was a movie, and she’d close out with an appropriate end credits scene, with her classroom desk wheeling her across the stage one last time to the tune of the album outro “Alligator Bites Never Heal,” as she gave shoutouts to all her tour support, from her DJ and dancers to the security workers. The lights would stay dark for a minute as fans chanted for an encore, but eventually the house lights came on and we all cleared out.

Overall, Doechii’s performance was as epic as expected, as she brought all the raw creativity you see in her music videos and turned it into a well-executed stage show. I’ll admit I went into this concert a little unprepared, having not listened to any of Doechii’s music before or after her Grammy award-winning album, but the energy, raw skill and show(wo)manship is undeniable. Not many emcees can pull off the choreography and dance moves Doechii does on stage while still nailing their raps, and she does it with style. It’s also refreshing to see a new artist continuously pay homage to the OGs throughout the performance, bridging the gap between old-school and new-school fans. In Doechii’s classroom we’re all students of Hip-Hop, and she’s just writing the next chapter in the textbook.

The Live From The Swamp Tour is just getting started! Tickets and tour dates can be found here.

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