Blog Can Minnesota bounce with Big Freedia?

Big Freedia, the New Orleans-born, gender-bending force of club music, creates joyous, ass-flapping bounce tunes that are more likely to be heard at a dance club than at a noted music venue. She’s the creator of songs such as “Azz Everywhere,” her tribute to ass everywhere, and “Gin In My System,” perhaps a quirky love tale. Both of these are high-energy rap demands, featuring verses that encourage the listener to pop, bend over, wobble wobble, and to generally stimulate sex all over the place. In terms of both content and execution, Freedia’s is music that makes you sweat. Fun, grimy, and unapologetically Id-laced, it’s like very little other music currently in the Twin Cities. 

That’s not to say there aren’t local acts inching in the direction of Big Freedia. Spyder Baybie Raw Dog 3K And 2% Muck take that sublime, subversive subject matter and give it a drug- and sex-tinged spin, producing records like this year’s Grimeworld. They’ll be opening for Big Freedia this Thursday, along with Marijuana Deathsquads and Plain Ole Bill. Together, Spyder Baybie and Muck have a recipe that comes off a bit dirty. Even so, it’s still under-respected by most local music fans—probably because it’s raw, somewhat abrasive, and a bit too honest. The group members are free-spirited guys making music and videos that buck the trend of caring about looking like a “nice boy,” embedding images of hard drug use and promiscuity. Frankly, that scares people. It’s one thing when rap music on the national scene goes in this direction—but here in Minnesota? Maybe it’s just too close to home.

Their shows are typically packed, and their word-of-mouth reputation is fuel to the fire, but hardly anyone would call them a celebrated local act the way Doomtree or members of the Rhymesayers collective might be. Is the Twin Cities scene not ready to accept this kind of subversion, or is it something else? Is this music solely for the Wild West ways of the Internet and the hard-partying night scene? It doesn’t seem like Spyder Baybie Raw Dog And 2% Muck will have The Current’s track of the week anytime soon.

Granted, songs called “Digital Vagina” will not be everyone’s cup of tea, and references to snorting Molly and “screaming into pussy” may obliterate the moral compass of some listeners, but there’s something to be said for how simultaneously good yet bad this music is. This happens often on the national scene. Pop music, Top 40 especially, and “non-conscious” hip-hop—to use a term I don’t agree with—often displays this curious mix of both bad and good, and many artists are unapologetic practitioners of this kind of musical release. Why aren’t there more local artists who let loose in this way and let inhibitions fly the way Big Freedia does?

La Manchita, whose real name is Claire Monesterio, often joins Spyder Baybie Raw Dog And 2% Muck onstage, and will be opening along with them Thursday night for Freedia. She’s a skilled performer and always a noted presence. With her huge head of curly hair and her impressive MC ability, she’s also quite alluring, and even more so when paired with Spyder Baybie’s lyrics, which often take a turn for the terse. She’s a welcomed juxtaposition. But she gets flack for it, like after her performance with Spyder Baybie Raw Dog And 2% Muck at last summer’s Pizza Luce Block Party. On the Gimme Noise recap of the performance, the comment section went a bit wild on La Manchita, with more than one commenter suggesting the performance demeaned women or was morally bankrupt. One commenter went so far as to say that the sole goal of the performance was to demean women.

“From Uptown to LA, block party to stadium, you can always count on lecherous performers to find a way to demean women in public. At least now I know that Spyder Baybie (and Bight Club) are just more male predators disguising themselves as artists. You can dress it up with funny glasses and an ironic haircut, but it’s still patriarchy.”

Another sample commentator suggests that the acts know their schtick, which is at least better than pretending to not know what kind of oppressive music they push:

“To be fair though, it’s not like Spyder Baybie hides their motivation. They wear their cartoon misogny like a stupid little headband. At least they make it easy for feminists to write them off. Most American men are a little more subtle with their womb-hatred.”

But if you ask Claire Monesterio, the subject of so many why-is-she-supporting-those-monsters comments, she sees the whole situation, and more broadly, this kind of music, differently:

“First of all, I think we are dealing with backlash from the prevalent—but not always acknowledged—opinion that ‘Rap’ and ‘Hip-Hop’ are two different genres of music. It’s a point of contention. Unfortunately the distinction, and sometimes the value/worth, is usually decided on the basis of content. And I think it’s valid to say that another core root of the distinction is plain old racism.”

Many of the celebrated rap and hip-hop acts in the Twin Cities have been those that claim to attempt to empower and enlighten the listener, rather than those that just let loose. But is that really what music needs to be about? Monesterio recalls the first time that she really felt free as a performer. Maybe not surprisingly, it involved Big Freedia. “There is one very specific instance that really helped me decide to just do my thing my way,” she says. “It was seeing Big Freedia at SXSW. I was in the front dancing to ‘Azz Everywhere,’ and she asked me to come onstage and get down with her ladies, up against a keg, ass to the crowd. I guess all I needed was a little permission, and I let go of my inhibitions about exposing my sexual side.”

The Twin Cities have become known, nationally even, for a genre of music that some describe as “conscious” hip-hop, a term that at once congratulates and smacks “regular” hip-hop on the face. It’s an elitist term that refuses to allow the idea that hip-hop music can be an uncensored act of libidinous impulse. Instead, some artists moan on about how they’re poets, thinkers, wisened artists, and moreover community builders—people who are standing up and creating music that does good rather than evil, whatever that may mean. And some of this music is quite good.

Recently Doomtree released its second full-length as a full-on collective. No Kings received a favorable review from this site. In the review, we called the music “fanged, punk-tinged aggression married to lofty hip-hop ambition, with a collaborative, mutual-appreciation attitude that’s reflected in the album’s democratic title.” It’s elevated hip-hop, rather than the sort of carnal, spontaneous, fun-heavy mix that gets the blood pumping and piques a person’s baser instincts. This “lofty hip-hop” is the antithesis of what Freedia is doing. 

That doesn’t mean what our music scene offers is bad, of course, but it’s curious that inhibition-free acts such as Spyder Baybie Raw Dog And 2% Muck aren’t held in the same regard as those artists who include more nuanced, veiled illusions to “deeper subjects.” What’s wrong with plain, old fun? Can fun not be art? And, as Monesterio points out, the whole label thing—whether something is rap, hip-hop, or whatever—is a moot point for the performer. “By classifying myself and my music according to somebody else’s standards, I run the risk of closing myself off to creative opportunities and inspirations,” she says. “And I’m talking about inside my own brain here. I’m trying to have an open mind and to let expression happen as honestly and naturally as it must be in order to be authentic.” And isn’t that what it’s supposed to be all about?