Bash Compactor: Brooklyn Bounce

The crowd at Saturday’s performance by Big Freedia at CoCo66 seemed split into three groups: the gays; the Bushwick club music aficionados; and readers of the [NewYork Times Magazine]. Then there was me. Sissy Bounce, the New Orleans-born music offshoot with the gender-bending angle, has become a phenomenon since appearing in the Sunday paper a few weeks back. For the first few minutes of standing alone, nursing a Pabst, I was afraid that I had no chance of fitting into any of the groups. Finally, I gulped my beer and started talking to Jacob Flood.

“It’s like an exercise in cultural anthropology for white urbanites,” he said. “I mean, what is it about a big trans rapper that makes these people feel comfortable?” Jacob was standing outside with his friend Charlie Aviroz, who explained that they were not there for Big Freedia, but for the opening act, House of LaDosha, a duo that makes “Fuck songs with phatass beats.”

In the back room, a group of the club music kids explained that Sissy Bounce was nothing new. “There’s a ton of regional black booty music that’s like this. There’s Miami Booty Bass, you’ve got Bounce and Sissy Bounce out of New Orleans, in Boston you’ve got Boston Bounce…” The rest of this sentence was completely consumed by pounding assault from the DJ. “…Go-Go is right around the corner,” finished Eric, whose last name was drowned out by another audio onslaught. House of LaDosha was about to redefine loud. The group was made up of Cunty Crawford, a 6-foot 6-inch white boy in shiny booty shorts, and Dosha Devastation, standing about half a person shorter, in full-on girly gear except for a goatee that hung down to her crotch, the subject of most their songs. LaDosha’s first song cued up, leading to a pounding like nothing I’d ever experienced. I was gangbanged by bass.

Devastation and Crawford rapped over the beats, spitting lyrics more obsessed with female genitalia than a 2 Live Crew album on songs like “Tuna Fish,” and the remix version “Tuna Fee-ash.” Other lyrics were concerned with pulling young men, staying fierce and becoming a boss bitch. Although there is a certain amount of camp to LaDosha’s act, the group isn’t unskilled.

By the time Big Freedia took the stage, the room was packed, people smooshed against each other, dripping with sweat as the bass bumped even harder and faster. People began to dance. Different types were shaking and all around me women’s heads were dropping toward the floor like they had to vomit, but instead would start gyrating at the ass. I felt myself give in. Songs like “Azz Everywhere” and “Gin in My System” had even the Times crowd seeing how much jiggle they could muster.

Windows on the far wall looked into the other section of the bar, where a couple stood playing a quiet game of pool. It was a world so close yet so far from the loud, packed scene I’d become a part of. Beads of sweat rolled down my body, tickling the small of my back while I kept my muscles clenched trying to fight it, but the bass was so strong, so smooth, that I began to loosen up, to give in. It hurt a little bit at first, but the best things always do, and in the end, I was glad I tried it.