Bobby and Taylor McFerrin; Beyoncé's 'Formation'; Big Freedia

If you didn’t know, if you though she was some ethereal, race-less, colorless transformative nymph who could doo-wop pop whatever you projected upon her, then you found out you were wrong.

I think it really demonstrates her growth. When she started out with Destiny's Child, most of her songs were about strength and independence, and being a successful woman. These kinds of women's anthems were incredible, but people would criticize them for being a little simplistic. As she's gotten older, she's matured and her art has matured right along with her. In her 2014 self-titled album, she explored her thoughts on feminism, gender, marriage, and love. It took a deeper turn. In some ways, "Formation" is part of that natural progression.

I feel like what's going on in the world, you have people who enjoy black music and art, but they don't always enjoy black people. I think Beyoncé wants to make a statement. She's part of our society, and she's experiencing the same things we're experiencing. She's watching the same news. She's consumed with the unrest in Baltimore and Ferguson, and I feel she's been moved by it. Tidal donated $1.5 million to the Black Lives Matter movement and other organizations. Her art and her beliefs are kind of coming together.

I would say it's about the resiliency of the black spirit in the face of insurmountable odds. Like the fact she's on a police car that's partially submerged in flood water. That makes you think of Hurricane Katrina and how so many African-Americans had spent generations there and they lost their homes and livelihoods, but they still had to find a way to move on. So the video is really an affirmation of blackness.

This is a classic instance where people just consume art. Oh, it's a nice song! Oh it's great dancing! I feel like people just took it in on a surface level. You had to step outside to see a deeper meaning, like the fact that her background dancers were dressed like Black Panthers.



If you're not informed, not "woke," as they say, it's really easy to just consume it as a fun time as opposed to looking at the deeper meaning.

I hope that people will be more open to women doing trap. She's basically doing trap music here. Beyoncé is not a rapper. But she kind of takes on a rapper's swag. And I'd really like to see more female artists do this as well. It feels like there's a dearth of female rappers. There aren't as many as there used to be. I'm a child of the nineties. You had MC Lyte and Queen Latifah and Salt-N-Pepa. You had tons of people, and now there's Nicki Minaj and that's it. So I'm hoping other female artists will embrace this and push it forward.

Bobby: July the 11th, 1977 at around noon. I was an accompanist at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City's dance classes and was walking home from lunch. Somewhere between the walk from the campus to my house, I thought to myself, I'm a singer. This is the interesting part: I got to my house, I opened up the yellow pages, found the number for a club called Room At The Top at the Hilton Hotel, called the number. 



The manager happened to be there and he picked up the phone. He set up an audition for me to sing the following day. I knew five songs. I sang my five songs and he hired me and that was the beginning of my singing career, I was 27. 

Taylor: Um, nope [laughs.] Around the house, my family was always playing The Beatles and Stevie Wonder. So I had a lot of music around me and then I grew up going to my dad's concerts, so I think I saw what he was doing as normal [laughs] as a kid. I thought improvisation and jamming seemed really normal, but then in school I was just listening to what was on the radio, so I gravitated towards hip-hop and I think I convinced [my parents] to get me a sampler beat machine in high school. 



I always wanted to be a hip-hop producer, but the hip-hop I gravitated towards was always sampling the music that they were playing around the house. I feel more spiritually connected to the '60s and '70s soul and funk, but because I grew up on the beat production, I'm trying to do a version of both.

Taylor: There's kind of different versions. Kids started making fun of me at some point in school. That was probably like third grade, but then there's a different version of that when I moved out and went to college and I started trying to actually make music. I grew up at his shows my whole life — it felt pretty normal — but once I stepped away and got into music on my own and saw how hard it is to really try to master any sort of craft, then I started going back to his shows with a completely different perspective. 

Bobby: Well, it's very different. Back in the day when they had record companies, real record companies, I could never get through reading a contract all the way because there were 500 pages long and they would have pages totally devoted to describing who the artist was. Every form they could describe you — he, it, them — it was just mind-boggling. So I have a great manager and good lawyers. That's basically what I told him: get a good manager and a good lawyer. 

Taylor: It's a really interesting time. The world that I'm really deep into right now, I think it's pretty compatible in terms of the vibe of the musicians. It's a very collaborative time and I think if you stick with it, and especially if you're in a major city like New York or Los Angeles, you just connect with the people that are doing the same thing that you're doing. 

Bounce music is a New Orleans-style type music. It has up-tempo, heavy bass, a call and response — meaning if I say something, you respond back to it. Very much high energy. You could work out on it. It’s a lot to deal with shakin' that ass, shakin' that ass. Yes. 

I always sung. When I was little I was into gospel music. I sung in church choirs. I sung in high school choir. I had my own choir. I sung in community choirs around the neighborhood. So I was always into music. I loved listening to music around the house with my mom, on Saturday mornings when we would clean up.



There was nothing that didn’t come across the radio. From LL Cool J to Salt n Pepa to Heavy D to Patti Labelle to Luther Vandross. Everything was in the musical catalogue growing up in New Orleans.

Being gay and coming up in New Orleans was not easy. At first I was very terrified and very timid. Being a big kid, I was kind of fat and chubby, and I got picked on quite a bit. But my mom [was] always throwing me back out there and [saying], “I got your back. Go back out there and fight. Don’t let nobody pick on you. Even though you’re gay, you stand up on your own two feet. You’re still a man.” My mom was my backbone since a kid. She would go to school and want to fight the kids for me. That’s just how serious it was.

I was tested on every level. At school, with my family members, with people at clubs. You know, I’ve had fights because people were just picking on us because we [were] young, gay, black teens. Things [were thrown] at us at early days of our concerts. Over time you get stronger and stronger. It’s not something that comes overnight, for sure. But you stand up, you get back out there and you fight, and that’s what we do in New Orleans.

I started backgrounding for Katey Red, who was the first transsexual male to come out with bounce music in about 1999. And people just was like, You sound really good behind her. You have your own style and you bring something to the table. You should try it as well. I started to grab the mic one day at a block party, came up with a few lyrics and the girls just went crazy about it. And magic happened. 

I was doing it and doing it and getting little gigs and hustlin' all around town. I used to be a shift manager for Burger King. I also was into nursing, so I worked at all type of nursing homes and hospitals. I did my little work. And then it was just like, Ok, we gotta do something to make this official. It gotta be the official business. And once I decided that I was gonna become a full entertainer, I decided that I was gonna be the hardest worker in bounce music. And that’s what I did.

I went through it all: sleeping on a bridge; sleeping at the convention center; having to get rescued on a Greyhound bus and then taking a flight to Arkansas; staying at a camping ground; going to a church campsite. It was bad for all of us, meaning that we had to be displaced from our city, from our homes. Things had to be destroyed, but it also was a new refresh. It helped New Orleans get reconstructed, to a bigger and better city. It helped getting bounce music worldwide, [because] we were displaced all over the place.

I was displaced into Houston. I made my decision that I would be staying in Houston to get my life together and … I started traveling and doing music. I turned into an even bigger artist. I was back in [New Orleans in] no time. Almost a year. There’s no place like home — the food, the people. I grew up there my whole life.

I never thought I would ever be on TV. But I know who I am and I never lose myself in the things that I do to try to get my career to the next level. So what you see is who I am. It definitely feels surreal sometimes when I see myself on TV and it’s just like, Wow, you have came a long ways.

[Dancing to bounce music is] for everybody, and guys get up there do it, and especially for women, to be able to express themselves and not feel threatened. And gay folks get up there and do it, and everybody get up there and do it. I bring all walks of life together, through the power of the ass.

My fans, of course, prefer [to call me] she. People who’s close to me, they say he, because they know who I am. Me, frankly, I don’t give a shit. I know who I am. I’m Freddy. I’m Freedia. I’m boy. I’m girl. I’m whatever you want me to be. [laughs] Ok? That’s just the way it is.