For many music fans, the explosion of New Orleans Bounce music a decade ago was their introduction to the exuberant dance style known as twerking. Bounce legend Big Freedia was a big part of that movement as many folks outside of hip-hop and its related subcultures first discovered the gyrating, booty-focused style, making Freedia something of an authority on the subject. As such, her opinion is occasionally solicited regarding the talent of a given twerker, as it was in a recent interview with Global Grind.
When asked if any of the modern crop of dancers who are currently living it up through the vaunted “Hot Girl Summer” would go into Freedia’s “twerk hall of fame,” Freedia shouted out the Hot Girl bandleader herself: “Everybody loves Megan Thee Stallion. I mean, I haven’t really seen Meg twerk but once on Instagram, but yeah, she would get the title right now.” However, the group that has contributed one of the fan-favorite anthems of Hot Girl Summer, “Act Up,” fell a tad bit short of Freedia’s criteria for inclusion. “It sure ain’t the City Girls,” she said. “I mean they just don’t twerk. They got a hot song but they don’t twerk.”
Of course, City Girls also have a song called “Twerk,” so naturally, their co-star on the track came up in the conversation as well. “I love Cardi,” Freedia offered. “She twerks down.” Despite Freedia’s judgement, all four women — Meg, Cardi, and JT and Yung Miami of City Girls — have all been enjoying their moment as members of a wave of female rappers who haven’t been forced to compete as artists. If they want to dispute Freedia’s assessments, there’s still a whole month of summer left, with Meg and Nicki Minaj set to introduce the home stretch anthem — titled, appropriately, “Hot Girl Summer” — on Friday.
Big Freedia is a Warner Music artist. .
