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New York Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Big Freedia on the Gospel Music That Lifts Her Up
Big Freedia will be the first to admit it's been a rough year. A terror attack struck the musician's New Orleans hometown on New Year's Day; in May her partner of 20 years, the visual artist Devon Hurst, died from diabetes-related complications; and in June, the Supreme Court dealt a blow to those fighting for transgender youth in a decision about medical care. An ambassador for the style of New Orleans hip-hop called bounce, Freedia always turns to music for solace and strength. 'It's something that the world needs right now,' she said while preparing to release 'Pressing Onward,' an album-length celebration of the lively, uplifting gospel she grew up performing at the Pressing Onward Baptist Church. 'It's something that I need, going through what I'm going through, with this healing process.' 'Pressing Onward' combines the party-starting rapping that made Freedia a sought-after guest for artists like Beyoncé (that's her exhorting 'Release your anger! Release your mind!' on 'Break My Soul') and the classic sounds of gospel (she's a former choir director). Freedia, 47, has dedicated the album, due Aug. 8, to Hurst, who enjoyed it while she was recording it. 'He was so proud of it,' she said. 'Every moment that I'm not busy, he's on my mind and I'm thinking about him. I'm still in disbelief.' In a video interview, she chatted from New Orleans about the culture that lifts her up and inspires her to break down doors. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. She used to sing with Raymond Myles and the RAMS from New Orleans and that's how she was discovered. She's been in churches, tearing the church down with that voice. 'The Battle Is the Lord's,' 'In the Midst of It All,' there's many songs I listen to from her. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Guardian
24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Bounce legend Big Freedia on going gospel: ‘I never heard 'God doesn't love gay folks'. God loves us all'
On stage at Nashville Pride festival on a sweltering June afternoon, Big Freedia is her usual boisterously commanding self. She invites volunteers and the sign-language interpreter to join her and her dancers in getting down to bounce music, the relentlessly kinetic style of hip-hop for which she has become a figurehead in her native New Orleans. Then she pauses for a brief heart-to-heart with the audience. 'I don't know if y'all know this, but I started in the church,' she says. Big Freedia's forthcoming album, Pressing Onward, is a gospel record and she is keen to stress that she isn't abandoning her core audience. The gay, gender-fluid rapper and reality TV star exhorts every kind of body to shake it and is unequivocal about her support for all marginalised people; her reputation led Beyoncé and Drake to sample her on some of their most successful tracks. 'This album is for us,' she emphasises. 'It is for people who are LGBTQ and who love God.' When the beat of a new song, Take My Hand, kicks into double time, just the way a sanctified rhythm section would in church, she brings gospel catharsis to queer people in the same southern state where the US supreme court recently upheld a ban on transgender youth healthcare, at a time when LGBTQ+ progress across the US is meeting with forceful religious pushback. The week after, Big Freedia logs on to our video call to talk gospel. 'It's already an ass revival when they come to a Big Freedia show,' she says, referring to the mass twerking her shows inspire. 'And now they're coming to a Big Freedia gospel revival.' In one sense, it's a superficial distinction. Back in the church choir of Big Freedia's youth, she moved people to ecstatic dance: 'We would have lots of clapping, stomping of the feet, choreographed dancing that we would do in our robes.' The young singer, who back then could hit soprano range, showed such dedication and promise that the choir's director made her their assistant. By high school, Big Freedia was leading ensembles and envisioned that as her future. 'I thought I was going to be a famous choir director and that I was gonna be singing with choirs all around the world.' Big Freedia says she grew up feeling welcomed by the working-class Black Baptist congregation that knew her as Freddie Ross Jr – so much so that she used its name as the title of her new album. 'From the first time I walked in the doors, they put their arms around me and gave me the biggest hug,' she says. 'And they knew I was a young gay boy. I was loud and proud, even as a kid. We didn't have those moments of the pastor talking about: 'God doesn't love gay folks.' God loved us all.' She was also becoming part of a circle of rappers that were making boastful, bass-heavy New Orleans club music a vehicle for their party-starting queer and gender-expansive personae. The bounce scene beckoned. Big Freedia received assurance from her mum and other church folk that pursuing it wouldn't be sacrilegious, as long as she maintained her relationship with God – and she lets it be known, loudly and often, that she has. Before she took the stage at Pride, her team huddled and someone offered a prayer: 'God give Freedia the supernatural strength, in the name of Jesus, from the top of her head to the soles of her feet.' Big Freedia certainly isn't the first member of the LGBTQ+ community to contribute to the gospel canon. That lineage might be more widely acknowledged if generations of the music's pioneers hadn't been required to live closeted lives. 'Once you start historicising, you figure out that so much of what is sung in churches was created by, and continues to be created by, queer folks,' says Ashon Crawley, a religious studies scholar and cultural critic who draws on insight he gained as a young, Black, queer Pentecostal church musician. In her youth, Big Freedia recorded with the New Orleans Gospel Soul Children choir, but she had never contemplated her own gospel project until a 2024 session yielded the spiritually ebullient dance track Celebration. 'God put it on my heart that this is what I need to do,' she says. Big Freedia made clear to potential co-writers that she still wanted her audacious swagger and compassion to come through and that she wasn't out to convert anyone. 'I'm representing for the LGBTQ community,' she told them. 'So when they come here, the door is bust wide open and there is no judgment and you have this moment to lose it in the spirit.' Parson James, a Nashville-based pop artist who is queer and biracial, helped her craft some of the hooks. He had dealt with the homophobia of his small-town South Carolina congregation by distancing himself from the church and its music, so he was wary of returning to gospel, but he put his trust in Big Freedia's intentions. 'Doing it with someone who's so confident – you can't tell her shit – it just was amazing.' Pressing Onward has ample pop accessibility: over an 808 drum machine, Sunday Best blends hip-hop fashion flexes and brags about Black church finery. But the album is also lifted by unmistakable gospel elements: warm, reverberant eruptions of Hammond B3 organ; the taut, powerful unison of mass choir singing. Crawley sees Big Freedia's reclamation of these traditions as potentially subversive. 'It demonstrates to the church: your excluding of us doesn't have to be the end of our story; we find community with one another in ways that you both taught us how to do and in ways you could not anticipate. So perhaps you should pay more attention to the very thing that you have excluded.' Big Freedia initially planned to release Pressing Onward in June's Pride month, but in May her longtime partner, Devon Hurst, died unexpectedly of diabetes complications. She insisted on directing the choir at his funeral. The day before our interview, she closed on the house they had planned to buy together. 'My whole life has just changed within this last month,' she says. 'It has been an emotional rollercoaster, all the things that me and him had planned and the things we were doing and working on. And now I'm doing all these things by myself.' Even in her profound grief, she was willing to push the album release back only by a month. 'I need it more than anybody,' she says. 'And I know if I need it, there's other people out there in the world that need it. There's always someone who's depressed or going through a hard time. There is always someone who's fighting who they are, or fighting against a community of people that don't accept who they are. This album is not just for me – it's for the world.' Pressing Onward is released via Queen Diva Music on 8 August
The Guardian
24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Bounce legend Big Freedia on going gospel: ‘I never heard 'God doesn't love gay folks'. God loves us all'
On stage at Nashville Pride festival on a sweltering June afternoon, Big Freedia is her usual boisterously commanding self. She invites volunteers and the sign-language interpreter to join her and her dancers in getting down to bounce music, the relentlessly kinetic style of hip-hop for which she has become a figurehead in her native New Orleans. Then she pauses for a brief heart-to-heart with the audience. 'I don't know if y'all know this, but I started in the church,' she says. Big Freedia's forthcoming album, Pressing Onward, is a gospel record and she is keen to stress that she isn't abandoning her core audience. The gay, gender-fluid rapper and reality TV star exhorts every kind of body to shake it and is unequivocal about her support for all marginalised people; her reputation led Beyoncé and Drake to sample her on some of their most successful tracks. 'This album is for us,' she emphasises. 'It is for people who are LGBTQ and who love God.' When the beat of a new song, Take My Hand, kicks into double time, just the way a sanctified rhythm section would in church, she brings gospel catharsis to queer people in the same southern state where the US supreme court recently upheld a ban on transgender youth healthcare, at a time when LGBTQ+ progress across the US is meeting with forceful religious pushback. The week after, Big Freedia logs on to our video call to talk gospel. 'It's already an ass revival when they come to a Big Freedia show,' she says, referring to the mass twerking her shows inspire. 'And now they're coming to a Big Freedia gospel revival.' In one sense, it's a superficial distinction. Back in the church choir of Big Freedia's youth, she moved people to ecstatic dance: 'We would have lots of clapping, stomping of the feet, choreographed dancing that we would do in our robes.' The young singer, who back then could hit soprano range, showed such dedication and promise that the choir's director made her their assistant. By high school, Big Freedia was leading ensembles and envisioned that as her future. 'I thought I was going to be a famous choir director and that I was gonna be singing with choirs all around the world.' Big Freedia says she grew up feeling welcomed by the working-class Black Baptist congregation that knew her as Freddie Ross Jr – so much so that she used its name as the title of her new album. 'From the first time I walked in the doors, they put their arms around me and gave me the biggest hug,' she says. 'And they knew I was a young gay boy. I was loud and proud, even as a kid. We didn't have those moments of the pastor talking about: 'God doesn't love gay folks.' God loved us all.' She was also becoming part of a circle of rappers that were making boastful, bass-heavy New Orleans club music a vehicle for their party-starting queer and gender-expansive personae. The bounce scene beckoned. Big Freedia received assurance from her mum and other church folk that pursuing it wouldn't be sacrilegious, as long as she maintained her relationship with God – and she lets it be known, loudly and often, that she has. Before she took the stage at Pride, her team huddled and someone offered a prayer: 'God give Freedia the supernatural strength, in the name of Jesus, from the top of her head to the soles of her feet.' Big Freedia certainly isn't the first member of the LGBTQ+ community to contribute to the gospel canon. That lineage might be more widely acknowledged if generations of the music's pioneers hadn't been required to live closeted lives. 'Once you start historicising, you figure out that so much of what is sung in churches was created by, and continues to be created by, queer folks,' says Ashon Crawley, a religious studies scholar and cultural critic who draws on insight he gained as a young, Black, queer Pentecostal church musician. In her youth, Big Freedia recorded with the New Orleans Gospel Soul Children choir, but she had never contemplated her own gospel project until a 2024 session yielded the spiritually ebullient dance track Celebration. 'God put it on my heart that this is what I need to do,' she says. Big Freedia made clear to potential co-writers that she still wanted her audacious swagger and compassion to come through and that she wasn't out to convert anyone. 'I'm representing for the LGBTQ community,' she told them. 'So when they come here, the door is bust wide open and there is no judgment and you have this moment to lose it in the spirit.' Parson James, a Nashville-based pop artist who is queer and biracial, helped her craft some of the hooks. He had dealt with the homophobia of his small-town South Carolina congregation by distancing himself from the church and its music, so he was wary of returning to gospel, but he put his trust in Big Freedia's intentions. 'Doing it with someone who's so confident – you can't tell her shit – it just was amazing.' Pressing Onward has ample pop accessibility: over an 808 drum machine, Sunday Best blends hip-hop fashion flexes and brags about Black church finery. But the album is also lifted by unmistakable gospel elements: warm, reverberant eruptions of Hammond B3 organ; the taut, powerful unison of mass choir singing. Crawley sees Big Freedia's reclamation of these traditions as potentially subversive. 'It demonstrates to the church: your excluding of us doesn't have to be the end of our story; we find community with one another in ways that you both taught us how to do and in ways you could not anticipate. So perhaps you should pay more attention to the very thing that you have excluded.' Big Freedia initially planned to release Pressing Onward in June's Pride month, but in May her longtime partner, Devon Hurst, died unexpectedly of diabetes complications. She insisted on directing the choir at his funeral. The day before our interview, she closed on the house they had planned to buy together. 'My whole life has just changed within this last month,' she says. 'It has been an emotional rollercoaster, all the things that me and him had planned and the things we were doing and working on. And now I'm doing all these things by myself.' Even in her profound grief, she was willing to push the album release back only by a month. 'I need it more than anybody,' she says. 'And I know if I need it, there's other people out there in the world that need it. There's always someone who's depressed or going through a hard time. There is always someone who's fighting who they are, or fighting against a community of people that don't accept who they are. This album is not just for me – it's for the world.' Pressing Onward is released via Queen Diva Music on 8 August
CBS News
14-06-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Boston "No Kings" protests during Pride Parade peaceful, upbeat
Hundreds of people gathered in Copley Square in Boston on Saturday for the Pride parade while "No Kings" protesters lined the streets in peaceful protest. Peaceful Protests The "No Kings" protests along the parade route were peaceful and upbeat as the Pride Parade marched from Copley Square to Boston Common. Many people lining the sidewalks held signs supporting the LGBTQ+ community, while others protested the policies of President Trump. Boston Pride For The People says this year's theme is "Here to Stay" and will send a message that "people who identify as LGBTQIA+ can not be erased, pushed into the shadows, or silenced, in the face of increased political attacks." While not everyone can march in the parade, all may attend the free festival, which will be held from noon to 6 p.m. on Boston Common. The headliner is Big Freedia. A 21+ block party will be held on City Hall Plaza from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday. This event is also free. A sign at the Boston Pride Parade, where No Kings protesters lined the sidewalks. CBS Boston "No Kings" The protests, called a "nationwide day of defiance" on the group's website, are aimed at President Trump and his policies, and coincides with the military parade being held in Washington, D.C. on Saturday. The parade marks the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. It also coincides with Mr. Trump's 79th birthday. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to attend the D.C. parade, as tanks and other military vehicles will roll through the streets of Washington starting at 6:30 p.m. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren spoke out against the military parade in Washington, D.C., saying on X, "Trump's parade will cost taxpayers up to $45 million. For example, with that money, we could expand health care & food assistance for veterans. A taxpayer-paid birthday gift to Trump sounds like government waste to me."
CBS News
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
What to know about the Boston Pride parade route, time and parking
Boston Pride 2025 is this weekend, with a parade and other events scheduled to celebrate the largest annual LGBTQ+ event in Massachusetts. More than 1 million people attended Boston Pride events last year, the organization said. Boston Pride For The People says this year's theme is "Here to Stay" and will send a message that "people who identify as LGBTQIA+ can not be erased, pushed into the shadows, or silenced, in the face of increased political attacks." Here's what to know about this year's festivities. When and where is the Boston Pride parade? The 2025 Boston Pride parade is happening on Saturday, June 14 from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The parade will take place rain or shine. The parade begins near Copley Square and continues along Clarendon, Tremont and Berkeley streets in the South End before turning onto Boylston Street and finishing in the Boston Common. The Boston Pride parade route CBS Boston Boston Pride events After the parade, a free festival will be held from noon to 6 p.m. on Boston Common. The headliner is Big Freedia. A 21+ block party will be held on City Hall Plaza from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday. This event is also free. Boston Pride Parade parking and street closures Parking near the parade route will be "extremely limited" due to road closures in the area, organizers say. If you have to drive, there will be limited parking in nearby garages. Taking public transportation is encouraged. Paradegoers should head to the Arlington or Boylston stations on the Green Line, or Back Bay Station on the Orange Line. According to the city, there will be parking restrictions throughout Saturday on the following streets: Boylston Street - Both sides, from Dalton Street to Tremont Street Beacon Street - South side (Boston Common side), from Charles Street to Park Street Berkeley Street - Both sides, from Tremont Street to Newbury Street Clarendon Street - Both sides, from Newbury Street to Tremont Street Dartmouth Street - Both sides, from Newbury Street to St. James Avenue Exeter Street - Both sides, from Newbury Street to St. James Avenue Fairfield Street - Both sides, from Boylston Street to Newbury Street Gloucester Street - Both sides, from Newbury Street to Boylston Street Hereford Street - Both sides, from Boylston Street to Newbury Street Tremont Street - Both sides, from Union Park Street to East Berkeley Street Charles Street South - Both sides, from Park Plaza to Boylston Street Charles Street - Both sides, from Boylston Street to Beacon Street
