Shaking My Booty With Big Freedia
Celebrating PRIDE with New Orleans’ Diva Queen of Bounce music
Big Freedia of New Orleans, Louisiana performed her Bounce style music on the Main stage at the 2021 Tulsa, Oklahoma PRIDE Festival opening Friday night. Beach balls flew through the air and wafts of cannabis snaked through the crowd. The music was loud and the onstage dancers had major moves. DJ Juan Jordan kept up the beat and two ASL interpreters signed the show while subtly swaying to the music.
The energy was high, the yellow full moon was mesmerizing, and the reverberations coursed through the enthusiastic crowd. The thrum of the beats vibrated through the crowd and many couldn’t help but twerking, head-bopping, swaying, and dancing to the beat, including this reporter. The Call-and-Response style meant fun crowd participation.
Midway through the set, Big Freedia invited some of the crowd to join them on stage for a twerk-off. Big Freedia instructed the dancers to turn away from the crowd and show off their twerking. Then, she paired off dancers for twerk-offs while she performed her Bounce narration. The onstage dancers were over-the-moon as they turned their booties to the crowd and showed off their ass-shaking.
Big Freedia, The Queen Diva of Bounce
BUST, Rolling Stone, HuffPost, The Wallstreet Journal, and more have covered Big Freedia. Big Freedia has an impressive bio, from collaborating with Kesha to being featured in Beyonce and Drake songs to starring in a docuseries on Fuse TV to partnering with Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream to create an iconic beignet flavor. It’s an eclectic bio. Here’s a link to that Kesha (ft. BIg Freedia) song, “Raising Hell.”
He or she are right
How do I identify? I do not mind if you call me “he” or “she.” Both are right! Although some of my early influences were the drag queens of New Orleans (including my uncle), I don’t wear dresses or high heels. I was born male and remain male — physically, hormonally and mentally. But I am a gay male. Some folks insist I have to be trans, but I don’t agree. I’m gender nonconforming, fluid, nonbinary. If I had known the “queen” in Queen Diva would cause so much confusion, I might have called myself the king! — Big Freedia
Want to learn more about Big Freedia? There are many articles about the pop and rap star. This New York Times article from 2010 gives a retrospective of when Big Freedia was starting out and also discusses how it was unusual for a gay man to be on the Bounce music scene. Her career has grown immensely since this 2010 write-up.
Born and raised in New Orleans, Big Freedia is known as the cultural ambassador of Bounce music, a call and response style hip-hop with a rapid-fire beat indigenous to New Orleans. A staple on the New Orleans club scene for over a decade, Big Freedia moved to the national stage after Hurricane Katrina. In 2015, Big Freedia penned her critically acclaimed memoir, Big Freedia: God Save the Queen Diva. — theroot.com
Big Freedia has a positive and empowering vibe as reflected in her charitable organization mission statement:
Bounce UP is a charitable organization founded by Big Freedia in 2019. Our mission is to identify and support local programs that directly improve the well-being of the children of New Orleans.
Bounce UP is currently seeking groups that work with issues of housing, nutrition, mentorship, arts, mental health and sexual violence prevention.
In Big Freedia’s 2020 BUST interview, she says, “I’m forever grateful to Drake, Beyoncé, Kesha, and everyone bold enough to work with a gay artist. BUST writer Emily Rems states that BUST first wrote about Big Freedia in 2010. She then writes, “As the foremost ambassador of New Orleans Bounce Music, BIG FREEDIA is the rule-breaking, ass-shaking, noise-making pop star we need right now.”
Watch Big Freedia’s music on YouTube.
Big Freedia Photo Gallery
Aimée Gramblin is still figuring out who she is and that’s okay. You can read all her Medium essays here.
