Monday, July 11, 2011
Hip-Hop Review: Big Freedia's Big Gay BBQ
Posted by Daniel Brown on Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 8:30 AM
July 7, Russian Recordings
4.5 stars
Big Freedia’s “Big Gay BBQ” could be summed up in one word (God and hipsters please forgive me for this Beyonce reference) — bootylicious.
The reigning queen of the New Orleans party rap genre “sissy bounce” hosted a southern fried BBQ and concert last night at Bloomington’s Russian Recording. With an over-abundance of food, booze and booty, it was the biggest party going in town.
The rapper brought a non-stop energy to her stage show consistent with the relentlessness of her music itself.
As NOLA-flavored bounce beats pulsated through a tracking room at Russian Recordings that could barely contain the turnout, Big Freedia kept the eclectic, sweaty, and scantily-clad audience moving.
A sample call-and-response: Freedia: “I’ve got that gin in my system.” Audience: “Somebody is gonna be my victim!”
During her hit, “Azz Everywhere,” she invited as many people as possible on to the stage, allowing them to stay only if they “dribbled” (her words, not mine) their azzes towards the audience.
The show got started almost two hours late due to a travel mix-up that landed Freedia, her DJ and her dancer in a Bloomington, Ill. airport, four hours from Bloomington, Ind.
But because the price of admission included BBQ — hence the event title Big Gay BBQ — an unperturbed crowd hung around, grilled out and enjoyed the summer evening on the patio and lawn outside the house-turned-studio. Those who couldn’t wait to dance until after Big Freedia's arrival grabbed hula-hoops and broke it down to DJ Action Jackson inside.
Big Freedia’s set clocked in at just about an hour, but was well worth the wait. It’s not often that NOLA bounce artists come through these parts. That’s a shame, because it was a damn good time.
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