📍The Pavillion at Toyota Music Factory — Oct. 29, 2025
Written by Clinton Camper

I grew up in Irving, so anytime a major artist plays the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory, I feel a little extra hometown pride. Or as we like to call it — the Crooked I. On Wednesday night, Doechii brought her Live From the Swamp Tour to that stage, and for ninety minutes, the whole place felt like it was pulsing with something bigger than a concert. It was a class in performance, creativity, and pure command.

From the jump, it was clear this wasn’t just another rap show. The stage looked like a literal “School of Hip-Hop” — a massive turntable, two oversized speakers, and a gliding classroom desk that Doechii used like a prop straight out of a music-video fever dream. She came out in a blue bra, a tiny cropped white dress shirt, blue shorts to match the bra, black tights, long school-girl socks, and black performance heels — part prep-school fantasy, part powerhouse performer. She opened with “Stanka Pooh” and “Bullfrog,” instantly locking in that teacher-meets-troublemaker persona she’s built her brand around.

Her Dallas ties ran deep that night. Kal Banx, who produced parts of Alligator Bites Never Heal, opened the show with a nod to local rap legends — sliding in Big Tuck’s “Southside Da Realist” and Lil Wil’s “My Dougie.” The hometown energy was real. When Doechii shouted out the D-Town crowd later, the response could’ve rattled the light fixtures.

Musically, the show was a blur of genre-bending brilliance. “Alter Ego” turned the room into a rave. “Denial Is a River,” performed with a silent-film-style intro and full choreography, played out like a Broadway production with bass. And “Anxiety” — her viral, Gotye-sampling single — hit even harder live, reimagined as a gritty rock anthem that turned the pit into a synchronized therapy session.

What really stood out, though, was her control. Doechii’s rapping is quicksilver: laser-focused one second, playfully unhinged the next. She switched flows like characters, one minute snarling through “Catfish,” the next grinning and twerking across the desk during “Crazy.” Between songs, she showed the same humor that’s made her TikToks blow up — tossing in a hilarious “sex-ed” interlude complete with a banana prop.

But the heart of the show came when she slowed things down. Before “Death Roll,” she paused to look out at the crowd and said, “If you came here alone, we’re your community tonight.” It felt real — the kind of connection that can’t be faked. You could see people in the stands mouthing every word back at her, decked out in plaid skirts and knee-highs, fully committed to her classroom aesthetic.

Then came one of the night’s best surprises. Instead of ending with one of her own songs, Doechii closed the show with Isaiah Rashad’s 2021 single “What You Sed,” which features both her and Kal Banx. She called Banx back on stage, and together they performed it like a full-circle moment — a celebration of where they started and how far they’ve both come. It was an easy, effortless finale that felt like watching two friends revel in the win.

Critics have been calling Live From the Swamp a “master class,” a “Critic’s Pick,” and the kind of tour that “cements her as the future of hip-hop.” After seeing it in my own backyard, I get it. Doechii isn’t just teaching — she’s rewriting the syllabus.