Big Freedia is a New Orleans, Louisiana-born American rapper, and artist. Her given name is Freddie Ross, although she is best known as Big Freedia, Queen of Bounce, or The Queen Diva.
Freedia rose to prominence after collaborating with high-profile single Beyonce on her breakout track Formation, which went on to win a Grammy Award.
Freedia rose to prominence for popularising the bounce type of hip-hop music, which she first introduced to the world in her hometown of New Orleans in the 1990s. She began her professional career in 1999, merging many genes such as Alternative Hip Hop, Electro, Dance, Bounce, and EDM.
Big Freedia made her musical debut in 2003 with the release of her debut studio album Queen Diva. However, the pivotal moment in her career occurred in 2014, when she released her third studio album, Just Be Free, which peaked at #28 on the US Heat charts.
Early Life
The 28th of January 1978 found Big Freedia being welcomed into the world in New Orleans, Louisiana, by her parents, who were devout Christians. Both of her parents worked in the beauty industry; her father, Freddie Ross Sr., drove a truck, while her mother, Vera Ross, was a hairdresser. In 2014, Freedia was left without a mother after her mother succumbed to cancer and went away.
She was raised with her younger brother Adam, who passed away in 2018, as well as her sister Crystal Ross. Freedia was just a young child when she first discovered her love for music, and while she was still a child, she began singing in church choirs. She claims that “music has always been a part of my life” and that she even had piano lessons when she was a child.
When Freedia was a student at Walter L. Cohen High School in New Orleans, she was an active member of the school’s choir. During the same time period, she was presented with the possibility of working as the choir director. It was around this period that she also became aware of her talent for composing and producing.
Music Career
In the early years of her professional career, Freedia worked as a background dancer and vocalist. She made her debut in Katey Red’s show. Red is a young drag queen who used to play bounce music in a bar located close to the Melpomene Projects, which is Freedia’s childhood home and where she grew up.
Freedia eventually released her first bounce hit single in 1999, titled “An Ha, Oh Yeah.” When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, Big Freedia made the decision to temporarily relocate to the state of Texas for a period of a few months.
During her time in Texas, she also had the opportunity to promote the bounce music genre by performing at local events held in a variety of locations across the city. This allowed her to broaden the audience for this style of music. Freedia started hosting FEMA Fridays at a neighbourhood club shortly after she arrived back in New Orleans.
Around this time, the audience began to recognise the rapper, and he started earning bookings for local events, parties, nightclubs, strip clubs, and a variety of other occasions. At that time, Big was giving anywhere from 24 to 30 performances during the span of a single month.
Career Success
The year 2003 marked the release of Big Freedia’s first studio album, which was titled Queen Diva, and it was this record that brought her to the notice of a number of prominent musicians, including Beyonce and Drake.
During the closing ceremony of the festival in 2009, she was given the opportunity to perform with Katey Red and Sissy Nobby, which led to her rapid rise to stardom. Freedia’s participation in the Bingo Parlour Tent and the 2009 Voodoo Experience helped to propel her to the forefront of the national music scene.
Later on in the year 2016, Beyonce extended an invitation to Freedia to be a featured artist on her breakout single Formation, which went on to win a Grammy Award. After that, she got the notice of Drake, one of the most iconic rappers in Canada, and he requested her to appear in his smash track from 2018 titled “Nice For What.”
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Acting Career
She was able to establish a name for herself in the entertainment world after first achieving fame and money in the music industry. As a result, she presented her own show under the name Big Freedia: Queen of Bounce, which premiered in 2013 and remained on the air until 2017.
Her most successful singles at the time of her breakout became the highest-rated actual series in a documentary series about the lives of choirboy-turned-Bounce-artists.
Freedia made her debut alongside the publication of her own autobiography, God Save the Queen Diva!, which she had a hand in writing. This biography, which was published on the 7th of July 2015, is all about her life and the personal story that she has to tell.
In the 2010s, Big made her debut on the late-night television show Last Call with Carson Daly. This was her first appearance on television. Since then, she has continued to make appearances in a variety of reality shows and television series, including a cameo in Treme. After that, she starred in Prince Paul’s Adventurous Musical Journey, along with a great number of other shows.
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Personal Life
Big Freedia is not shy about her sexual orientation and has stated that she is a gay male. Initially, she stated that it did not matter to her whether pronoun was utilised when referring to her. However, at a later time, she referred to herself using the pronoun “she.”
Freedia began a romantic relationship with Devon, and at that point, the couple had been together for more than 14 years. Their relationship came to an end when Devon made a marriage proposal to Freedia, but she turned him down and broke up with him instead of starting a partnership.
It was revealed by Roumrs that Big Freedia is a mother of a daughter when Big Freedia declared in the lyrics of her music that it is her daughter’s birthday, despite the fact that there is no true report accessible about her child. Roumrs is Big Freedia’s manager.
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Big Freedia Net Worth
Big Freedia is considered to be one of the wealthiest as well as most well-known female rappers in the country, and it is projected that her net worth is somewhere in the neighbourhood of $4 million as of the year 2022. She rose to prominence as a result of her contribution to the dissemination of the bounce subgenre of hip-hop music, which had its origins in the early 1990s in her city.
Throughout her career, Freedia has worked with a number of well-known artists, including Drake and Beyonce, who have both featured her on several of their tunes. Freedia has also collaborated with a number of lesser-known artists.
Record sales, live concerts, worldwide tours, royalties, merchandising, live streams, and appearances on reality shows all contribute to her income, but a significant percentage of it comes from the music industry.