It’s tough to describe a Big Freedia show in a new and inventive way. Which is weird, because she is nothing if not new and inventive. As the face of sissy bounce, Freedia is a flamboyant ambassador to a southern genre largely foreign to most music fans in the U.S. And going to a Freedia show is like no concert I’ve ever experienced.
Calling it a concert, in the first place, is a stretch. Freedia’s stage show is equal parts performance, interaction, showcase, and sex. The music, while integral, is also perplexingly unnecessary; it largely consists of loud bass, repetitive hooks, and flashy lyrics. To open her SXSW show at Windish House’s showcase, Freedia sang a variation of a line popularized by Beyonce – “a diva is a female hustla” – over and over and over again. Freedia’s most popular song is “Azz Everywhere,” which consists (if you can believe it) of Freedia shout rapping the line “ass everywhere” while prowling the stage and pointing at various derrieres.
Which brings us to the main fascination of Freedia’s set: the dancers. Two dudes and two dudettes – along with Freedia herself – took turns bending over stools and shaking what their mama gave them. When that got repetitive, they got on the ground. When that got old, they got in the crowd and enjoined the audience members to shake it along with them, pulling people on stage and generally wreaking happy havoc amongst the typically reticent SXSW attendees.
It was probably the weirdest SXSW show I saw, and – with all due respect to Das Racist’s shamble-ramble – the most free-form performance of the week. It was also a blast.
