In 2019, Doechii recorded a raw, honest song about anxiety in her bedroom in Tampa. The world wouldn't hear it properly for six years — until TikTok made it impossible to ignore.
A Song Born in a Bedroom
Born Jaylah Ji'mya Hickmon on August 14, 1998, in Tampa, Florida, Doechii grew up immersed in the performing arts — ballet, tap dance, gymnastics, acting, and choral singing. She once dreamed of being a professional choral singer before a friend encouraged her to release music independently. In 2019, she self-recorded a mixtape called Coven Music Sessions in her bedroom, and one of its tracks was "Anxiety."
The song samples the guitar line from Gotye and Kimbra's 2011 global smash "Somebody That I Used to Know." What makes the sampling lineage even more fascinating is that Gotye's song itself sampled "Seville," a 1967 instrumental by Brazilian guitarist Luiz Bonfá. Doechii's "Anxiety" is thus a third-generation musical reinterpretation — a sample of a sample of a classic.
Six Years Later: The TikTok Eruption
In 2023, rapper Sleepy Hallow sampled Doechii's "Anxiety" chorus for a track on his album Boy Meets World — an ironic twist that brought renewed attention to her original. Then in early 2025, the original demo went viral on TikTok, reaching millions of listeners who had never heard it. After countless fan requests, Doechii released an official re-recorded version on March 4, 2025, through streaming platforms.
The response was massive. "Anxiety" peaked at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 — Doechii's first US top ten single. Internationally, it reached number one in Australia, New Zealand, Greece, Latvia, and Switzerland, and cracked the top ten in Germany, the UK, France, Ireland, Norway, and elsewhere across Europe. It also charted high on the Billboard Global 200.
"I just put what I was feeling honestly in my bedroom. I never imagined six years later it would top charts around the world."— Doechii on the song's unexpected global journey
That same year, Doechii cemented her status as one of music's most vital artists when she won the Grammy for Best Rap Album at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards for her mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal. She became only the third Black woman to win in that category, following Lauryn Hill and Cardi B.
Turning Anxiety into Art
"Anxiety" resonates because of its unfiltered honesty. Doechii didn't dress up her vulnerability — she let it speak directly. In an era when TikTok rewards authenticity above polish, a six-year-old bedroom recording cut through billions of algorithmically optimized content to find its audience. The song's message — that anxiety is universal, that imperfection has its own language — made Doechii not just a trend but a genuine voice of a generation.
