Just ahead of performing at the Red Bull Dance qualifier in New Orleans, the bounce superstar talks staying positive, her side hustles, and her dream collaborations.

<a href="https://www.instagram.com/bigfreedia/">Big Freedia</a> is like soul food, meaning that she is a whole mood. The Queen of Bounce is hours away from performing at Red Bull&#39;s Dance Your Style New&nbsp;Orleans <a href="https://www.instagram.com/redbulldance/">qualifier</a>&nbsp;when she sits down with me. The freestyle dance battle in her native city is a match made in heaven for the rapper, who has made her name by being herself. Standing tall at 6-foot-3 with her crimped ombre tresses coming to her shoulders, Freedia is wearing a black T-shirt that appropriately says &ldquo;This Queen,&rdquo;&nbsp;as well as black skinny jeans and customized Dr. Martens that feature her name and&nbsp;catchphrase &ldquo;You Already Know.&rdquo;&nbsp;In her twenty-year career, she has given us a rump-shaking catalog that makes you want to lift ya leg up, jump, and go crazy.&nbsp;While Ariana Grande acted as a civil servant by revealing that God was in fact a woman. Freedia did so by letting us know that Santa, thank Heavens, is a gay <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1G5bOg6wn8">man</a>.

In 2013, Big Freedia invited the world&nbsp;to see the inner workings of her life on her hit Fuse reality show,&nbsp;Big Freedia: Queen of Bounce. But while she has gotten attention for her catchphrase, the singer was quick to let everyone know about her other side hustle. &ldquo;Something that people don&rsquo;t know about me that I&rsquo;d like them to know is before I was rapping, I was an interior designer and decorator. I did&nbsp;weddings, parties, and funerals.&nbsp;I went to the flower school,&rdquo; she explains enthusiastically. &ldquo;A lot of times, people don&rsquo;t know that that&rsquo;s still my world. I still have my business that does all of this. I&rsquo;ve done the mayor&#39;s office. All of his events: many parties all around the city, many weddings, birthday parties. You name it, I do it. I&rsquo;m multitalented and&nbsp;have my hands in a lot of different things. People may not know, but I&rsquo;m a hustler.&rdquo;

A hustler is an understatement to describe Freedia. The bodacious bounce star started her career as a backup dancer and singer for friend and trans bounce artist <a href="https://www.instagram.com/imkateyred/?hl=en">Katey Red</a>. And if you&rsquo;ve watched the show, you have seen their NOLA Lucy-and-Ethel dynamic relationship play out.&nbsp;Since debuting&nbsp;her first solo project,&nbsp;An Ha Oh Yeah,&nbsp;20 years ago&nbsp;in 1999,&nbsp;Freedia has often received credit&nbsp;for helping to bring bounce to a national and global scale that has allowed her to collaborate with industry heavyweights like RuPaul (on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFoRH-VtFO4">&ldquo;Peanut Butter&rdquo;</a>). Bounce icon and pioneer Mia X has also referred&nbsp;to Freedia as the queen in the past, adding to her already impressive reputation.

Freedia&#39;s&nbsp;energy is not only electric but also magnetic.&nbsp; Ask any native New Orleanian&nbsp;about her and their face lights up. Whether it was the person sitting next to me on the plane,&nbsp;my Uber driver, or anyone else I encountered, just mentioning her name instantly lightened&nbsp;the mood. And they are also quick to point out how she continues to rep for their city.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I stay positive because of the energy and people I have around me,&quot; the &quot;Duffy&quot; singer says of keeping a positive aura.&nbsp;&quot;If you keep negative people around you, you just feed off of it. I&rsquo;m just like everybody else.&nbsp;I have good days, and I have bad days and days that negative people that come into my&nbsp;circle. You have to learn how to push those people out. I ask God every day to push those snakes out of my circle.&rdquo;

It was three years ago that The Queen of Bounce collaborated with the other queen, Beyonc&eacute; Giselle Knowles Carter, to feature on&nbsp;her single&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDZJPJV__bQ">&ldquo;Formation,&rdquo;</a>&nbsp;which garnered significant acclaim with its&nbsp;unapologetic celebration of black womanhood. &ldquo;I did not come to play with you hoes, I came to slay bitch,&rdquo;&nbsp;Freedia testifies on the song. In 2018, she followed this with&nbsp;a feature on Drake&rsquo;s &quot;Nice for What,&quot; though her lack of presence in&nbsp;the video sparked <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59j4xn/big-freedia-drake-beyonce-essay">online debate</a> regarding the erasure of LGBT visibility in hip hop music. In true queen form, the bounce pioneer&nbsp;is quick to uplift and mention other members in her community, sharing who she believes are the heavyweights the world should watch: &ldquo;Oh, there&rsquo;s so many.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOAz1xQYYdQ">HA-SIZZLE</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/supahbadd/?hl=en">GameovaReedy</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/supahbadd/?hl=en">SUPAH BADD,</a> <a href="https://open.spotify.com/artist/0bnSXLp5VJS5wS40ilaBGK?autoplay=true&amp;v=A">Sissy Nobby</a>, Katey Red,&nbsp;<a href="https://vockah.com/">Vockah Redu</a>.&nbsp;Ooh, there&rsquo;s so many, chile.&rdquo;

Today, media is rightfully starting to increase&nbsp;LGBTQ visibility, but that was not the norm when Freedia was growing up. But who was it that she was looking to as a source for inspiration? &quot;Prince, Sylvester, Rupaul,&quot; she says. &quot;Some of my&nbsp;icons who I was into. Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick. I was old-school, so all of those people. Luther Vandross. All of those people were great entertainers.&nbsp;I loved their music and looked up to them and wanted to be like them.&rdquo;

Though Freedia&nbsp;has some of the biggest collaborations underneath her belt, she certainly has not closed the door to more. Of whom she would like to collaborate with next, the singer&rsquo;s list could go on for days. &ldquo;Fantasea, Kelly Price, Patti Labelle. Nicki Minaj, Cardi B. The list is long, chile,&quot; she says, adding excitedly, &quot;Meg, too!&rdquo; A Hot Girl-Bounce bop would truly shake the table and the wall.

Big Freedia currently has two <a href="http://www.bigfreedia.com/tour/?fbclid=IwAR0hmvURaZ9av0lywF7C47RKkX7s_4a3ElGxlZyzSV6Y4ZEX1muxERjGtUU">tours</a>&nbsp;on the horizon.&nbsp;First is Big Freedia&#39;s Summer Shakeup, and then&nbsp;Azz&nbsp;Across America Tour.&nbsp;While you wait for the tour to kick off, stream her latest collaboration with The Soul Rebels called &nbsp;&ldquo;Good Times&rdquo; <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/2BouJNu9BfNsJAOwuj2j7W">here</a>.

All Hail Big Freedia, the Queen Diva

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