Big Freedia

Big Freedia is a performer, musician and icon to the lgbtq community. She is a transgender artist who help cultivate a hip-hop style that we now call New Orleans bounce. She has a very distinctive presence and personality. Artist such as Drake and Beyonce have used sound bytes of her voice in their music. Her voice can be heard in some of the most iconic and popular songs of out time, including Beyonce’s Formation, and yet most people still don’t know who she is. This is because, while artist love to capitalize on her bold words and vocal presence, they do not ever feature her in their videos and have her make any appearances in their performances. As a large, black, trans woman she is not part of what popular culture today deems as worthy. Arists have not yet come to recognize her for the artist that she is because she does not fit the most of what a mainstream artist should be. Trans people of color are still struggling to be represented in our society. Even Rupauls Drag Race has made it explicitly clear that trans women do not belong on the show. I think this also play into a larger issue of the appropriation of black, queer culture as a whole. People love to mimmick black queer attitudes, dances, style and catchphrases. All I hear nowadays are people saying “slay, gagged, tea, wig, living!, etc” and yet the very people who say these things have no relationship to the community in which they are drawing from. Queer people fo color are influencing every facet of popular culture today and yet, for the most part, they remain invisible and underrepresented.