Doechii originally released “Anxiety” in 2019, five years before her Grammy-winning album Alligator Bites Never Heal came out. After it started to go viral, especially on TikTok, she re-recorded the “Somebody That I Used to Know”-sampling track; it’s since become one of her biggest hits.
Today (April 28), she released the official “Anxiety” music video.
Directed by James Mackel, it shows Doechii dealing with one precarious situation after another inside her house (including a cameo from Gotye) before she’s able to escape wearing only her underwear, only to be greeted a group of dancers and an elephant. Except she’s not as free as she thinks she is.
Doechii previously shared the backstory of the re-recording.
“Now, you may be thinking, ‘Anxiety’ already came out.’ So, Sleepy Hallow — amazing artist — he dropped a song called ‘Anxiety,’ where he was sampling my song called ‘Anxiety,’ but my song is using the sample of ‘Somebody I Used To Know.’ And then I took that beat, ‘Somebody I Used To Know,’ and I made my own song on top of it called ‘Anxiety.’ So then I dropped that song on YouTube.
It never hit streaming, and then Sleepy Hallow sampled that, it got approved, and then that song blew up, and now people are finding the original version that I did on YouTube, and that’s blowing up on TikTok… and now people want me to release the full version, and… we’re here! And I’m releasing it, and it’s coming out! So, y’all can enjoy the full version and that’s the lore behind ‘Anxiety.’”
You can watch the “Anxiety” video above.