Forever remaining true to herself, her style, and her sound,Big Freedia has earned her status as an icon in music.
It’s late afternoon in New York. Big Freedia, the Queen of Bounce and LGBTQIA+ maverick and advocate offers a trademark warm introduction after just landing in the city. It seems impossible to escape her influence; Big Freedia has been catapulted into pop culture through her bounce music and her many guest spots with some of the most prolific artists working today. All these facets are aided by her immediately recognizable style and her outspoken views on LGBTQIA+ acceptance and rights.
“She was my protector, she fought for me every step of the way. No matter where I was at—school or in the neighborhood—she came running. She was my superhero.”
However, away from New York, Big Freedia’s hometown is New Orleans, which offers grounding and a place to call home. She is still known affectionately by her birth name, Freddie Ross, by her comrades in the city, where her roots are inescapable. Her mother, Vera Ross, raised an opus of unapologetic self-identity through acceptance and support. Vera passed in 2014, and Big Freedia’s reflection on her mother is one of love and adoration for a trailblazer of acceptance. She tells Mission: “She was my protector, she fought for me every step of the way. No matter where I was at—school or in the neighborhood—she came running. She was my superhero.”
Big Freedia’s early days on Josephine and Music Streets in New Orleans offered a fun upbringing and would provide the stage for Freddie Ross’s metamorphosis into a unique performer, but it was not without its challenges. “My beginning days were me figuring out who I was,” she recalls. “Each year I got better, more confident with believing in the things that I wanted to do. But it was New Orleans; I had to fight to be who I was. I had to stand up to bullies and people who wanted to pick on me and call me a sissy. Through the endurance of it all, I’m still here. I’m blessed to be able to reflect on my journey.”
“When you know who you are, you don’t need to identify as anything. I have straight friends that may say I’m their bro. I have my girlfriends who say I’m their sis. I have gay kids who say I’m their mom.”
Despite those early setbacks, Big Freedia has remained true to herself and her ambiguous gender identification. “I’m very gender fluid,” she says of the varied relationships she has with specific people. “When you know who you are, you don’t need to identify as anything. I have straight friends that may say I’m their bro. I have my girlfriends who say I’m their sis. I have gay kids who say I’m their mom. I have my family who calls me by my real name and my sister who calls me her brother.” While Big Freedia isn’t too concerned about these labels, she still recognizes the need to embrace people’s identities, and that can start with their pronouns. “It’s not a big thing for me, but I do think that it’s important that you call a person what they want to be called,” she says. “If everybody can do that, I think everything will be fine.”
Big Freedia is widely credited with driving bounce music—a heavy call-and-response rap genre—into the mainstream, but the beginnings of her musical inclinations were much different. Rising through the ranks of her school choir to director, she credits Katey Red as a key figure of inspiration and influence. Red was a pioneer in bounce as the first transgender person to produce music in this area. “Katey was my friend, so I started helping her to create sounds and songs,” says Big Freedia. “And then one day they asked me to get on the mic at a block party. I got the crowd hyped and everybody started asking, ‘Who is that?’ It just grew from there.”
Despite its origins in the 1980s, bounce was largely contained to the city until relatively recently. The 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster, during which time the city of New Orleans was in focus through world media, was a major catalyst for the popularization of the genre across America. “That’s when I started to notice bounce music was growing outside of New Orleans, when everybody was displaced,” Big Freedia says. “People were asking, ‘What type of music is it? Where’s the sound from?’ ” That brought sudden exposure to Big Freedia. “My numbers grew outrageously. I started getting calls from different areas to bring a sense of New Orleans to people. And that’s when I thought, I’m going full force, I’m going to change the game and do something different that nobody has done for the bounce culture,” she says.
It’s well known that Big Freedia’s voice has been used in some of the biggest cultural music moments of the past few years and has elevated bounce culture after Katrina. Her vocals have become iconic, lusted after, and have resulted in international hits. She has collaborated with Lizzo, K$sha, Drake, and most notably with Beyoncé, first on “Formation” on the groundbreaking album Lemonade. “I’m just super honored and super grateful to get those phone calls,” she says humbly. “It’s great to keep on building my catalogue and to keep getting different exposures in different genres of music and crossing over with their fans.”
More recently, Big Freedia rejoined forces with Beyoncé on the 2022 worldwide hit “Break My Soul” on the Renaissance album; the track earned number one status in the U.S. and samples Big Freedia’s song “Explode.” Big Freedia received her first-ever Grammy nod for Album of the Year as a featured artist on Renaissance. An artistic masterpiece and cultural milestone, Renaissance serves as a tribute to 1970s Black dance music and shows appreciation for Black and queer pioneers of the genre. As an avid and admired LGBTQIA+ advocate and icon, it was fitting to have Big Freedia sampled on the album. “The work speaks for itself,” she says about her collaboration on the track. “I’m so honored and grateful for Beyoncé. When we did the first song, “Formation,” together, it changed my life. And when we came with “Break My Soul,” it changed it again. I’m proud to be a part of such an iconic artist, iconic movement, and iconic statement in the messaging.”
“It’s sad that we are taking steps backward and we’re not moving forward. You know, we need important people and people in office to keep fighting for us. We need allies to keep fighting for the community.”
Our conversation shifted to the current political trend of reversing LGBTQIA+ rights in America. “I think it’s ridiculous that we are still at this point, and we’re supposed to be living in a free country and a country of liberty and justice for all,” she says. “It’s sad that we are taking steps backward and we’re not moving forward. You know, we need important people and people in office to keep fighting for us. We need allies to keep fighting for the community.” Big Freedia knows it’s necessary to have that type of support from all allies if they hope to make any progress. “We need all of our family and friends and relatives to stand up and fight with us at all costs,” she says. “At this time it is critical and it is crucial. We need to continue to spread the word to fight, to stand up, and to not back down, because we have generations to come, and we need to prepare for those generations and set the tone.”
This year, Big Freedia was the recipient of the PFLAG National Breaking Barriers Award, and it couldn’t be more deserved. Through her tireless work advocating for acceptance and a better future for members of the LGBTQIA+ community, she stands on her own platform, carved through her dazzling career in music. She uses her distinct voice with grace, and she has the the ability to uplift any project she is involved in with a Midas touch.
Photo By Wayan Barre. This interview first appeared in Mission’s Identity issue 9.
