For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard will be counting down our editorial staff picks for the 10 Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 all the next two weeks. Last week, we revealed our Honorable Mentions artists for 2025 as well as our Rookie of the Year and Comeback of the Year artists. Now, we reach No. 9 on our list with an artist who made good on nearly all the hopes that pop fans had for her in the years leading up to 2025, the impossibly high-ceilinged rapper Doechii.
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Listen to our Greatest Pop Stars podcast discussion about Doechii’s breakout season here.
Leveraging the momentum she garnered in the final months of 2024, Doechii solidified herself as a bonafide pop star in 2025.
After dropping her Alligator Bites Never Heal mixtape in August ‘24, Doechii stole the show on several late-year collaborations, including Tyler, the Creator’s Chromakpoia standout “Balloon,” which arrived just days before the Swamp Princess earned three nods at the 2025 Grammys. Her infectious verse and Recording Academy co-sign, as well as a pair of viral live performances, spurred even greater interest in her music, resulting in the breakthrough success of “Denial Is a River.”
In 2025, “Denial” entered the Hot 100 for the first time in mid-January, assisted by a music video that flaunted Doechii’s knack for crafting cultural moments. Featuring cameos from the likes of ScHoolboy Q and Zack Fox, the “Denial” music video spoofed classic sitcoms and telenovelas, presenting Doechii as the star of her own cinematic universe. By February, she would bring “Denial” to the Grammy stage (and No. 21 on the Hot 100), delivering a knockout medley that was named by Billboard the night’s best performance and even earned Robbie Blue a Primetime Emmy for outstanding choreography.
Flanked by a classroom of dancers donning schoolhouse-themed Thom Browne costumes, Doechii tore through a medley that began with her rapping “Catfish” while hitting a mid-air split and ended with her nailing “Denial is a River” on a treadmill. Packed with high-octane, Fosse-inspired choreography, an outstanding display of breath control, DJ Miss Milan’s seamless second-in-command energy and the overall emotion of her career-shifting night, Doechii simply owned the 2025 Grammys stage. Each of the eight best new artist nominees was given a solo performance slot, but none delivered a set as immersive and enrapturing as Doechii’s. And viewers responded: In the week immediately following the ceremony, Alligator Bites logged its biggest sales week yet, “Denial” soared into the top 40 and “Nissan Altima” hit the Hot 100 for the very first time.
As if obliterating the stage wasn’t enough, Doechii also pulled off a semi-upset, taking home the best rap album Grammy for Alligator Bites. During her tearful acceptance speech, which she passionately delivered with her mother by her side, Doechii made sure to speak life into all the young Black girls watching her victory. “Don’t allow anybody to project any stereotypes on you, to tell you that you can’t be here, that you’re too dark, or that you’re not smart enough, or that you’re too dramatic, or you’re too loud,” she stressed. “You are exactly who you need to be to be right where you are, and I am a testimony right now!” Right after the show aired, Doechii celebrated with “Nosebleeds,” a Ye-nodding victory lap that would become a mainstay on her festival setlists that summer. To close out the month, she teamed up with JENNIE of BLACKPINK for the infectious “ExtraL,” which became her highest-charting Hot Dance/Pop Songs hit (No. 6).
In March, Billboard named Doechii its Woman of the Year, making her just the second female rapper to earn the title, following Cardi B in 2020. Just a few days before that announcement, however, Doechii released what would become her biggest Hot 100 hit yet — and its origins technically date back to 2011.
Originally recorded and self-released via YouTube in 2019, “Anxiety” flips Gotye and Kimbra’s timeless 2011 hit “Somebody That I Used to Know” into a half-sung, half-rapped rumination on its titular mood disorder. In 2023, Sleepy Hallow sampled Doechii’s 2019 demo (and credited her as a featured artist) on his own song of the same name, giving way to the original’s resurgence at the top of 2025. Buoyed by a viral TikTok dance inspired by a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air scene (and featuring Will Smith and Tatyana Ali in the flesh!), a flash mob-tributing music video and her general ever-increasing star power, “Anxiety” soared all the way to No. 9, marking her first appearance in the Hot 100’s top 10. Undoubtedly her breakout hit, “Anxiety” did prove relatively divisive among Doechii’s fanbase, with some of them preferring to leave the song as a forgotten late-2010s demo — and she even cut the track from some of her festival sets. But the momentum proved unstoppable, and “Anxiety” is currently up for five 2026 Grammys, including record and song of the year.
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“Anxiety” powered Doechii through the rest of spring (which included a remix of The Weeknd and Playboi Carti’s “Timeless”) and most of summer, during which she prioritized live shows over new music. In addition to explosive sets at Glastonbury and All Things Go NYC, Doechii also performed at Lollapalooza, where she announced her headlining Live from the Swamp Tour. Hitting major cities across the U.S. and Canada, Doechii’s tour maintained her momentum while showing fans what she’s capable in larger venues with no festival restraints. Her twin younger sisters served as backup dancers, DJ Miss Milan was the perfect partner-in-crime, and notable guest stars included Ravyn Lenae and Julia Fox.
Notably, Doechii pulled up to a few awards shows amid her festival run, including June’s BET Awards, where she won best female hip-hop artist (her first triumph at the ceremony) and bravely called out ICE and Donald Trump in her acceptance speech. By September’s MTV Video Music Awards, Doechii picked up her first two Moonpeople, best hip-hop and best choreography for “Anxiety.”
To finish out 2025, Doechii began setting the stage for the following year. As she opened two dates on the Australian leg of Kendrick Lamar’s record-breaking Grand National Tour, which finished as the third highest-grossing trek of the year, Billboard named her the No. 2 Hottest Female Rapper of 2025. On Dec. 30, she tapped SZA for the meditative “Girl, Get Up,” an outright rebuke of misogynistic, anti-Black streamers who questioned the authenticity of her rise — and a formal conclusion to her Alligator Bites Never Heal era.
If Doechii left fans with any disappointments from her year, it’s that her official debut studio album — whose 2025 arrival she had guaranteed in late 2024 — never materialized. All that means, however, is that Doechii could be in for an even more dominant 2026 if and when her debut LP finally arrives.
Listen to our Doechii Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 podcast discussion here, check back for our No. 8 artist tomorrow, and stay tuned the next two weeks as we roll out our top 10 — leading to the announcement of our No. 1 Greatest Pop Star of 2025 on Friday, Jan. 30!
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