Hot 100 First-Timers: Doechii Debuts With Kodak Black Collab ‘What It Is (Block Boy)’
Doechii makes her Billboard Hot 100 debut as her new collaboration with Kodak Black, “What It Is (Block Boy),” enters at No. 98 on the latest, May 20-dated chart.
The song, released March 17 via Top Dawg Entertainment/Capitol Records, debuts with 12.3 million radio airplay audience impressions (up 11%), 3.5 million official streams (up 14%) and 1,000 downloads sold in the United States in the May 5-11 tracking week, according to Luminate. It also holds at its No. 11 high on Hot R&B Songs and rises 31-29 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.
Radio-wise, the track rises 12-10 on Rhythmic Airplay — becoming Doechii’s first top 10 on a Billboard airplay chart — as well as 25-22 on Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and 26-25 on R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay.
The song is available via six versions: original, sped-up and slowed-down versions with Kodak Black, and original-speed, sped-up and slowed-down ones without the rapper.
Notably, the track samples TLC’s classic “No Scrubs,” which crowned the Hot 100 for four weeks in 1999.
TikTok has been instrumental in the song’s growing profile, as a portion of Doechii’s solo version has been used in over 138,000 clips on the platform to-date. (TikTok itself does not contribute directly to Billboard’s charts.)
Doechii (real name Jaylah Ji’mya Hickmon), 24, scored her first chart entry in March 2022, when “Trampoline” with David Guetta, AfroJack, Missy Elliott and BIA reached No. 26 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs. Her team-up with SZA, “Persuasive,” reached No. 33 on Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay in October. The latter is from her EP She / Her / Black Bitch, which hit No. 23 on the Heatseekers Albums chart last August.
The Tampa, Fla., native has released four EPs: Coven Music Session, Vol. 1, in 2019, Oh the Places You’ll Go (2020), Bra-Less (2021) and She / Her / Black Bitch. Along with Kodak Black and SZA, she has collaborated with Babyface, Ravyn Lenae, Isaiah Rashad and Smino, among others.
On March 1, Doechii was honored as Billboard’s 2023 Women in Music Rising Star, at the YouTube Theater in Los Angeles. Her mother, Celesia Moore, presented the award, and Doechii performed “Persuasive” as well as her track “Crazy” at the ceremony.
Doechii signed to Top Dawg in March 2022, becoming the label’s first female rapper. This February, she told Billboard that 2023 is going to be her biggest year yet. “I’m in year three of my five-year plan,” she mused. “By year five I want to be at my peak. I want to be in my Sasha Fierce era, the top of my game with still a long way to go — but I want to reach my prime and never leave it.”
Xander Zellner
Billboard