This summer sees the release of two music-related books: a memoir by preeminent New Orleans bounce diva Big Freedia and a comprehensive guide to heavy metal demons Gwar. Check out our reviews of these two books below.
Big Freedia, aka "The Queen Diva", is more than just New Orleans rap royalty. She’s the artist who helped popularize bounce music, the emissary who took the genre outside of the city and served it up to the rest of the world. Between a schedule of touring, a reality television show on Fuse, and the release of her first studio album, Just Be Free, Freedia has been working tirelessly to keep bounce on the map. Her new memoir, Big Freedia: God Save the Queen Diva!, chronicles the events that shaped and molded her effort and artistry into what it is today.
Built around a theme of "struggle and healing", the book takes a chronological approach to her life story. A large portion centers around her growing up queer in the '80s and '90s in New Orleans, splitting time between directing her church choir as a teenager and finding her place in the underground nightclubs as bounce music moved beyond a regional sound into the mainstream. Freedia details how her and other artists like Katey Red started the subgenre of "sissy bounce", where Freedia says,"“the sexually explicit lyrics resonated in a way that the typical misogynistic rap lyrics didn’t. It was liberating for women to be the ones asserting these acts instead of being the target."
From there, the book depicts Freedia’s burgeoning career as she dropped out of nursing school to become a full-time musician and the hardships along the way, from losing friends and family to violence to surviving both a gunshot injury and being trapped in the middle of Hurricane Katrina with her family. The last third of the book focuses on her journey into the mainstream, playing shows all over the world, turning television appearances into her own show on Fuse, and the benefits and challenges that come with reaching a wider audience.
In her story, Freedia speaks candidly about contentious relationships with producers, collaborators, family, and boyfriends. While the primary focus is on Freedia’s personal story, her life is inextricably tied to the history and advancement of bounce music and culture. The book draws on that, providing an in-depth look at the customs and environment that birthed this movement. One passage in particular details an incident in which an audience member angrily confronted Freedia about lyrics in a song because she didn’t understand the context in which they were written. The book provides that context, bringing the reader into Freedia’s world so they can connect with that culture and truly understand where the music comes from.
While the book follows a familiar format, what sets it apart is Freedia’s voice, imbuing the story with her distinct personality. Freedia’s story is inspirational, a journey overcoming poverty and discrimination to become an internationally known star. The rise of Big Freedia is the rise of bounce, and God Save the Queen Diva! serves as a worthwhile encapsulation of that tale. —David Sackllah
Earthlings view Gwar as a performance art/metal band launched in the mid-'80s from the bowels of Richmond, Va., but true fans know they’re the space pirates responsible for killing off the dinosaurs, doomed to roam the galaxy with the Scumdogs of the Universe. The true story of the art collective known as Gwar may never be fully known but new 360-page tome Let There Be Gwar (Gingko Press) attempts to tell it anyway. Compiled by longtime Slave Pit member Bob Gorman and author Roger Gastman with a forward by Kurt Loder, it’s a high-end tribute for a band known for spewing fake bodily fluids from effigies like OJ Simpson, Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, and Justin Bieber, just to name a few.
The text mixes oral history and narrative from the band’s early art collective days through Grammy nominations, tabloid TV appearances, an ACLU-backed lawsuit, the deaths of members Cory Smoot and Dave Brockie, the Gwar-B-Ques and beyond, bringing us up to Blothar’s re-introduction and the short-lived reign of Vulvatron, promising Gwar will live forever. The photos and paraphernalia packed within prove the concept to be bigger than the music and more of an overall life experience. Fans (known as "Bohabs") know to prep for a night of Gwar, counting on politically incorrect content and reveling in the fact that things often get messy.
The elaborate sets and handmade Mad Max-esque costumes Gwar is known for can be fondled here on glossy pages in all their glory, from a safe distance. Ticket stubs, posters, news clips. and full-color photos fill its blood-spattered pages, complete with a zine of fan-mail wedged in its cracks. Illustrated fan envelopes serving as centerfold and one letter from a "concerned Catholic Christian" berating Gwar as "creatures with the morality of cannibalistic psychotics" add icing to the exhaustively-researched brick-sized opus. All in all, Let There Be Gwar is a Bohab’s wet dream. —Shawna Kenney