In 1996, Freddie Ross was a gay teenager graduating high school—the same year he first sang as a backup vocalist for his friend Katey Red, the prolific gay rapper from New Orleans’ Third Ward. Back then, Ross could not know that, twenty years later, Beyoncé—that Beyoncé—would be calling in hopes that Ross would record vocals for her new song.

It wasn’t long after that first performance with Katey Red that Ross found footing centre stage in New Orleans’ thriving bounce music scene. He became, on stage and in everyday life, Big Freedia Queen Diva.

Undisputedly credited for launching an entire subgenre of underground, region-specific hip-hop to the frontier of international pop music, Freedia has, in the past decade, appeared in the media’s most revered outlets: The New York Times, Pitchfork, Vogue, and Rolling Stone, to name a very few. Lil Wayne referenced her on “Back To You.” Her raps are sampled in two of Drake’s singles, “Nice For What” and “In My Feelings.” Lizzo is featured on Freedia’s hit “Karaoke.” You’ll recognize Freedia’s deep voice hollering “I came to slay, bitch” between refrains on Beyoncé’s “Formation,” as well as singing alongside RuPaul, Charli XCX, and Kesha.

Bounce music is defined as much by its signature audio elements—call-and-response lyrics, rapid-fire beats—as its cheeky physical component: twerking. It’s even in the dictionary, defined as “sexually suggestive dancing characterized by rapid, repeated hip thrusts and shaking of the buttocks, especially while squatting.” If you’re a visual learner, watch Freedia’s music video for “Rent.” Twerking is a beacon of New Orleans’ dance culture and came long before Miley Cyrus made it famous.

The challenges Freedia has faced throughout her career are a testament to her incredible resilience and, simply, hard work. She was displaced after Hurricane Katrina wiped out much of her neighbourhood in 2005. Relocating to Houston, Texas, Freedia continued to perform, giving bounce music exposure in a new state. She was one of the first bounce rappers to begin performing in New Orleans as the city started to recover. Tragedy struck multiple times in a relatively short span of years—a boyfriend was lost to gun violence, her mother succumbed to cancer, and her brother was killed in a shooting. Big Freedia herself has a bullet lodged in her forearm from an unprovoked attack years ago.

Yet, what defines Freedia is her energy and, especially, her willingness to share it. Through a successful docu-series that aired for six seasons, her autobiography, and organizing and setting a Guinness World Record for Most People Twerking Simultaneously (2013, 358 people between the ages of eight and 80, New York City), Freedia expresses a homegrown sentiment: positivity is catching.

In 10 years, the Queen Diva has robustly infused mainstream music with the sounds, and the moves, from a little corner of Louisiana. But it’s the tip of the iceberg: the groundwork that Freddie Ross laid out in clubs around the Melpomene Housing Projects all those years ago have truly paid off. There’s only one question left: what’s next for Big Freedia?