Man oh man, I do love me some new music. The new thing is an explosion in New Orleans Bounce music, largely due to the superstar-in-the-making powers of Big Freedia.
Bounce music itself is not new, it’s been around on the streets of New Orleans for more than a generation and has remained largely unchanged, heavily indebted to its canonical beat known as the Triggerman refrain. Much like the Amen break in hip-hop, breakbeats, (in particular) jungle and drum ‘n bass the Triggerman beat immediately identifies, frames and dominates all of Bounce music. I particularly love music like this; where it is created, perfected and completed in a single instance.
Tangent: I think of My Bloody Valentine’s song Slow from the You Made Me Realise EP in the same way; although in MBVs case the shoegaze sound was only perfected by the Loveless album.

But back to Big Freedia; I don’t have much to write about him/her except that to sat that a huge part of the innovation that she and other sissy’s bring to Bounce is that they are gay or transgender. Bounce lyrics have always been and remain filthy[1], but having them delivered by a big, gay black man has somehow freed the music from its woman-as-ho/object history and gives its ownership over to women. A Big Freedia show, by all accounts, belongs to the women who shake their booties in the most lurid fashion; it’s a strictly hands-off situation for the men and Big Freedia protects her chicks ferociously. Well, that’s about it; here are the videos – turn it up, it’s explosive.

Big Freedia’s killer, genre-defining track – Ass Everywhere

A live show with Big Freedia and Sissy Nobby

An interview with Big Freedia

And finally, the NY Times documentary that started it all for me.