Besides eating BBQ, trend-spotting is a popular diversion at SXSW.
There’s the 90s revival starring Courtney Love, the goth-lite movement led by The xx, the punk reincarnate idea with Death.
The one trend I’m hoping will stick or achieve some modicum of attention, though, is the reemergence of New Orleans bounce.
This is the music which revolves around fairly simple bass-y beats, a few recurring samples from early songs in the genre, and most importantly the gratuitous shaking of ass. I’d venture near 100 per cent of the lyrics revolve around booty shaking in some form or another.
It was born out of one song, Where Dey At?, in the early 90s – there are a couple of versions, the most notable being by DJ Jimi in 1992.
Bounce then reached into all forms of New Orleans hip hop, like Juvenile’s hit Back That Azz Up in 1998.
At this year’s SXSW, there’s a different take on the regional micro-genre, though the asses still move the same way. It’s called Sissy Bounce, and its forefathers/mothers, Big Freedia and Katey Red, were here to promote it.
Freedia, whose crazy song AZZ Everywhere is actually everywhere, disappointingly couldn’t make her daytime gig.
So that left Katey Red, a transsexual who started signing when at age 19 she grabbed a microphone at a birthday party, played to a giddy outdoor audience before her showcase on Saturday night.
Her dancers were, truth be told, stole the show. They couldn’t really dance any sense other than jiggling their bums. It sounds more gawkish rather than any sort of art. But watching the bouncing accompanied by the euphoric bounce music is kind of hypnotic, making it very hard to look away. [rssbreak]
Caution: The shakey footage reflects the bouncing.
