My best answer to the “What key is this song in?” question is… (drumroll please): A Mixolydian . That is to say, it’s based on the collection of notes we associate with D Major ( Ionian ), but it’s centered on A. Think of an A Major scale with a G♮ replacing the usual G# as the 7th scale degree. All the accidentals we hear (outside of A Mixolydian), like G#, A#, C♮, D#, exist in the cracks between our scale tones and they serve as attendant diversions to perk up our ears and keep us engaged.

It’s important to recognize that while we often think of key center as some objective fact, it can be open to interpretation . Carol Krumhansl, Professor of Psychology at Cornell University, has written an important treatise on this topic. The subjective nature of determining what key a piece of music is in might have to do with a listener’s cultural background or listening habits. You may hear “Denial Is A River” differently than I do. If you think it’s in B minor, that’s valid. Neither of us is wrong.

But given that I’m the author of this article, I’ll take a stand and declare the A13 as the I chord — our harmonic center of gravity. The A13 doesn’t need to resolve anywhere. It’s not a stop along a route to some destination — it’s the destination itself. While the chord may feel restless, it is, indeed, home.

As the 2-bar phrase in Figure 5 cycles repeatedly, we remain in a perpetual state of anticipation, marinating in unresolved (albeit harmonically rich) tension because the dominant-13 chords never pull us in any particular direction. There’s no sense of finality or conclusion — and I think that’s the point: to exist in limbo. I imagine this is why Doechii chose this beat for “Denial Is A River.” The chord progression is colorful but non-directive. It’s the perfect harmonic bed over which Doechii’s rap flow can dictate direction and meaning. The chords serve to create one continuous mood—a playful sense of expectation—but they don’t engage in an actual linear narrative. That job belongs exclusively to Doechii’s rapping.

One more thought to close out this topic, before we get to Doechii’s rap flow: NYU music professor Ethan Hein has postulated that any series of chords, no matter how arbitrary or incoherent, can sound “correct” if accompanied by a satisfying breakbeat drum loop. By extension, rapping over any chord loop, even if the chords were chosen at random, can legitimize the loop. (I’m reminded of Adam Neely’s “ repetition legitimizes ” refrain, which he got from Dave Johnson at Berklee.) When referencing “Denial Is A River” specifically, Hein suggests the chords are arbitrary, implying that any other harmonic choices would’ve worked just as well. While I think there’s merit to his argument in the macro sense, I don’t agree in this instance based on my analysis above. The “Denial Is A River” chords invoke a specific, carefully calibrated mood. That mood informs Doechii’s rap flow, which in turn imparts color and texture to the chords and drum beat. There’s a symbiotic relationship between the two. Even though they were created separately, they sound inextricably linked.

Denial Is A River, And Surely It Flows

Rap flow can be an elusive concept, but I attempted to define it comprehensively in a previous In Theory article about Kendrick Lamar’s “United In Grief.” In short, “flow” is the way a rapper converts speech phonemes into music. Hip-hop possesses a unique characteristic within the range of what we call “pop music,” insofar as lyrics play a structural role, not merely a complementary role. The sounds of the words — the phonemes, their stresses, cadences, inflections — convey musical meaning in the same way a plucked string does, or a vibrating column of air making a pitched sound. A paper published the journal Language And Speech in 2019 (by hip-hop linguist Steven Gilbers, neurobiologist Nienke Hoeksema, et al.) constructs the analogy that flow is to rap what prosody is to language. In essence, flow is a rapper’s art of delivery using rhythm, articulation, and melody.

Doechii wrote “Denial Is A River” in strophic form — meaning, it uses a repeating verse structure with no chorus or “middle 8” section. We can think of the syncopated breathing section at the end as a kind of coda, but the song still follows a kind of “AAAA” format with no “B” section. Her dexterous and varied flows reveal Doechii to be an accomplished student of the art. We can hear influences from Busta Rhymes to MF DOOM to Nicki Minaj. Her rhythmic pocket is tight, with clear diction and every phoneme pronounced with intention.

In a paper titled “ On The Metrical Techniques Of Flow In Rap Music ,” Kyle Adams, Music Theory department Chair at Indiana University, describes flows based on articulation and meter. He describes “articulative techniques” as ways rappers vocalize words (e.g., legato vs. staccato); and he describes “metrical techniques” in reference to when the rapper vocalizes them (placement of rhyming or accented syllables, the number of syllables per beat, etc.). Specifically, with metrical technique: derivative flow is a type of construction where the rapper derives the timing of their syllables from the metric subdivisions of the beat they’re rapping over. In contrast, generative flow is a type of construction where the rapper’s vocal rhythms don’t necessarily correlate to the underlying beat.

In “Denial Is A River,” Doechii synchronizes most of her energetic rap flow precisely with the underlying beat (derivative flow) — including with the slightly “drunken” kicks. But there are crucial, contrasting moments — often conversational — that move out of time (generative flow), with a Rakim-style slight swing in the 16ths. She displays a deeply intuitive sense of rhythm that allows her to move through varying degrees of swing and micro timing, creating natural rhythmic fluctuations so the rap flow helps tell the story naturally. See Figure 6 below.