Grammy Award winner Doechii has made her mark in the hip-hop industry in 2024 with her feature on Tyler, the Creator’s Chromakopia album with the song “Ballon,” capturing the hearts of listeners and shortly gaining a larger audience. Doechii’s 2024 album Alligator Never Bites, which came out two months before her feature, skyrocketed to popularity on social media because of tracks like “Denial Is a River”, “Nissan Altima”, and “Catfish.”
The sudden rise to fame and popularity of a new artist, to some, may look suspicious and raise questions.
Doechii has faced her fair share of criticism this past year from hip-hop commentators about her musicality, her appearance, and sudden virality in the rap game. Kick streamer, Adin Ross, has been the main vocal point in Doechii’s criticism.
“Oh Doechii rant don’t get me started on that b****. Don’t get me started on that industry plant,” Ross stated on stream.
Ross and many other streamers such as Stable Ranaldo and even artist Ye vocalized that Doechii was an industry plant being heavily pushed by her record label.
Doechii is signed to Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) alongside SZA, ScHoolBoy Q, and Kendrick Lamar. Many people on social media believed that with Kendrick Lamar performing at the Super Bowl halftime last February and winning five Grammys for his hit song “Not Like Us”, TDE used Lamar’s success to push and promote Doechii.
Ross has called Doechii multiple derogatory terms and with his musical loyalty to Drake, who was in a rap battle with Lamar in 2024, seems to be biased based on his thoughts on his likeness of Drake.
Doechii gained popularity in 2021 online with her 2020 song “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake” on TikTok before signing with TDE in 2022 and confirming her breakthrough with her 2023 single “What it is (Block Boy)” which also gained recognition on TikTok.
Popular hip-hop commentator and streamer DJ Akademics posted the clip of Ross’ stream on X on May 13 last year captioning it, “Adin Ross VIOLATES Doechii, calling her an industry plant, talentless, and a horrible person for the clip exposing her verbally abusing her employees.”
Claims that Doechii lacks talent overlook the emotional range of her catalog including tracks like “Anxiety” and “Stressed” where she opens up about her vulnerability, self doubt, and mental health.
The clip Ross was referring to was Doechii on the red carpet at the 2025 Met Gala yelling at her team to give her more umbrellas to protect her on-theme hairstyle, an essential part of her outfit.
The grammy winner joked about the backlash she received in a TikTok stating, “God forbid a girl needs more umbrellas.”
She would later put out an Instagram statement stating she was very proud of her team’s performance.
The Feud Escalates: Backlash, Music and Public Response
That wouldn’t be the last time Doechii would be criticized by Ross. Shortly after this situation, Ross would lose multi-million dollar brand deals due to his comments about Doechii and rapper Megan Thee Stallion.
Ross did another livestream where he reacted to streamer ImDontai calling Ross’ comments towards Doechii disgusting. Ross clarified that he wasn’t attacking Doechii due to her race but because she was yelling at 9-5 workers.
“I call out horrible people…I don’t care who you are,” Ross said.
Opinions on Ross losing out on his deals were very split, with some empathising with the streamer while others believe he got what he deserved.
It’s been months since there was any mention between Ross and Doechii until the end of 2025. On Dec. 30, Doechii released her song “Girl, Get Up” featuring Grammy winner
SZA. The purpose of the song was to declare her talent, overcoming obstacles in the music industry, and telling her haters to get up and accept her accomplishments.
In the song, Doechii states, “All that industry plant s*** wack, I see it on the blogs. I see you in the chats. You suck every rap n**** d*** from the back, but what’s the agenda when the girl is Black?”
Lyrics continued with, “Ya’ll can’t fathom that I worked this hard and ya’ll can’t fathom that I earned this chart. They can’t credit me so they blame it on Satan. Blame it on my label, blame it on my team, end of the day everything’s on me.”
When the song came out it was received very well from the internet and the comments underneath the music video remain positive.
Even though Doechii never named anyone in particular, many people believed that she was referring back to Ross for his comments. Ross also believed that Doechii was talking specifically about him as well and decided to respond to her.
“I’m doubling down bro, Doechii you’re a horrible musician. You f******* suck at music, that’s why you fell off and you’re coming after me, a streamer,” Ross stated.
Earlier this month, Ross ended up doing a diss track alongside rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine and streamer Cuffem titled “Bacon.” In the song Ross called Doechii a “dirty b**** bottin’ her views”.
The internet didn’t agree with Ross’ verse on the song suggesting him to let the situation go with some social media users questioning Black men online who defend Ross, a white man, degrading a Black woman.
Ross’ diss track made people question if his dislike for Doechii was truly about her yelling at her team or if it stems from racism. Ross has had similar situations degrading other women of color, such as Megan Thee Stallion and former Vice President Kamala Harris.
YouTuber Scru Face Jean, called out Ross for lying about his outrage for Doechii. In the reaction, Jean shares screenshots of Ross’ controversial past using racial slurs and his antisemitism.
“Adin Ross, you are the biggest lying hypocrite,” Jean said.
Ross has continued to face backlash from the Black community about his remarks toward Doechii with the streamer receiving threats from online users. Additionally, rappers like Glasses Malone told Ross to stop acting out.
THE DOUBLE STANDARD
The internet has only seen Ross show hostility online towards women of color and rarely men. When rappers Playboi Carti and 21 Savage allegedly scammed Ross out of huge amounts of money on live stream, he never directly addressed the issue. When it comes to women, more specifically Black women, it seems the tone of voice changes.
Streamers are one of the main outlets of entertainment for the younger generation to watch and are mainly influenced by it. The spread of hate speech and violence being seen on these sites and the glorification of this lifestyle continues a cycle of problematic behavior.
On Jan. 7, Ross went on stream and said he lost a huge collab with an NBA superstar in New York due to his comments about Doechii. The NBA stars’ PR team called Ross and told him that the deal they had with him was cancelled.
Ross then announced that he will be donating $100,000 to underprivileged communities in Los Angeles, and calls out people who are criticizing him during this situation to do the same.
“I’m not doing this because I’m “racist” I’m just trying to prove a point here,” Ross said. “Why don’t you guys do anything good for where you come from? I gave $100,000 to my city.”
Later, Ross went online and said that he will be taking a break after his monthly earnings have dropped by 30% on Kick and claims to be done talking about Doechii.
Streamers like Ross and N3ON (Neon) use the Black community as a stepping stool to boost their careers to only attack that same community which is common in society everyday.
Social media has seen that Ross has a continued pattern of anti-blackness and misogyny, fake outrage about employee mistreatment, and willingly platforming harmful political figures, musicians, and hate speech on his channel.
I don’t believe Ross is genuinely sorry for what he did, and instead think he’s sorry because he’s now starting to receive his long awaited backlash and suffering financially for it due to his ignorance.