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# Meet the Godmother of Bounce
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/meet-the-godmother-of-bounce/
- Published: 2013-02-25T21:43:32.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:48:46.000Z
- Description: Katey Red is the unlikely godmother of bounce music. Katey, a trans rapper who stands over six feet tall and has a penchant for miniskirts, got her start in bounce in the late '90s, as she explains in this Avant/Garde Diaries [http://engine.nectarads.com/redirect/0/61363/43837/0/00000000000000000000
- Author: Jillian Steinhauer
- Tags: Announcement, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:51 (2012, 2013, part 1)

Katey Red is the unlikely godmother of bounce music. Katey, a trans rapper who stands over six feet tall and has a penchant for miniskirts, got her start in bounce in the late ’90s, as she explains in this[*Avant/Garde Diaries* ](http://engine.nectarads.com/redirect/0/61363/43837/0/00000000000000000000000000000000/0/0/86974/0?ref=hyperallergic.com)[video](http://engine.nectarads.com/redirect/0/61363/43837/0/00000000000000000000000000000000/0/0/86974/0?ref=hyperallergic.com), which itself is rooted in the beat of bounce. “I gets up, I start beating on the wall. I started saying stuff. … And I just let it rip. I ain’t never stopped.”

Like so many other American cultural symbols — jambalaya, jazz, voodoo — bounce is a uniquely New Orleans creation. A strain of Southern rap, it uses a throbbing beat distilled from a 1986 song and the vocal styling of Mardi Gras call-and-response. It’s raw and infectious.

Katey first entered the scene when she rapped at a party near the housing project where she grew up; people were blown away. She quickly became a local hero, and in the years since, she’s helped dozens of artists make their way, starting a crew of young bounce rappers and dancers. Some of those artists have left for other places, but Katey sticks in and with her hometown. “This your hometown music,” she told [*The Avant/Garde Diaries*](http://engine.nectarads.com/redirect/0/61363/43837/0/00000000000000000000000000000000/0/0/86974/0?ref=hyperallergic.com). “We try to bring New Orleans out there as much as we can. If you don’t have your hometown supporting you, that’s not nothing.”

![](http://engine.adzerk.net/v/0/43837_61363_20_0/v.gif?r=46543547354)