When I get ahold of Javocca Davis, aka Vockah Redu (pronounced Vah-ka Rah-Du), he's headed north from Louisiana to perform at Idapalooza—a radical-queer music and arts event in the country-bumpkin-filled woods of central Tennessee. According to www.planetida.com, these woods are not only a party spot for the weeklong Idapalooza, but also a year-round "safe space" consisting of 200-plus acres where queer and trans people "can learn rural living skills."

WHAT?!? A gay nature compound in the wilds of Tennessee? When I think of the Southern red states, especially waaaay out in the woods, it's hard to imagine ANY "safe space" for the gays. I'm sorry to say it, but Deliverance still bleeds many a fearful stereotype all over my brain.

But Redu isn't scared. He's been blazing his own queer trail through Louisiana since he was a wee one, a li'l music-minded babe growing up in the Magnolia Projects in New Orleans—the Big Easy. After visiting the Big Easy several times, I always imagined it wouldn't be a very "easy" city to be gay in, especially if you were a "gay rapper" from the projects. I mean, real talk: That "no homo" bullshit started in the rap world.

Talking to Redu, I discover my stereotype-­ridden brain is wrong. New Orleans, birthplace of gumbo (such a delicious, boiling hot pot of culture clash) and jazz and straight hiphop heavies like Lil Wayne and Juvenile, also birthed a baby musical genre back in the 1980s called "bounce"—and then, in the late 1990s, bounce's horny little gender-bending sister "sissy bounce."

As catchy as "sissy bounce" is as a moniker, the three top queer "sissy bounce" artists—Katey Red, Big Freedia, and Vockah Redu—object to the "sissy" tag. "It's just 'bounce,'" Redu tells me. "'Sissy' is NOT what I represent or stand for. My music is happy dance music, music that reflects me and my inner body energy."

"Energy" is what truly defines bounce and sets it apart from other New Orleans hiphop. Bounce is its own original recipe of sped-up, call-and-response, hypersexual dance callouts, all layered on top of a repetitive, simple "Triggerman" beat (a recycled beat originating from a song called "Drag Rap" by the Showboys). The most defining element of bounce, however, is the Dance. The performers do the Dance, the audience does the Dance, and EVERYONE MUST DANCE. Most notable for me after seeing both Vockah Redu and Big Freedia is booty-spinning ("spinning" is the constant circular rotation, in a single direction, that you do with both ass cheeks—bounce it round!).

What if you don't have very much booty to work with—not much to bounce around? "To move your rump up and down, and round and round—the size doesn't matter," Redu tells me. "What matters is practice, creativity, and confidence in the motions of your body."

Where does all this magical confidence come from? Expensive dance classes as a child? Not quite. "Growing up in the Big Easy was education from early childhood—the religion, art, music, and theater in the streets. The root of my gumbo is the street smarts I learned. The best thing about the Magnolia Projects was that the community encouraged me the most there—growing up on the Avenue was as good as growing up on St. Charles—because I had a vision."

Flashing back to the first time I saw Vockah Redu perform, in Austin at SXSW this past spring, I have my own vision—and it's of a beautiful superhuman who affected every single body. The audience, made up of mostly tired and hungover straight rocker guys and girls, could not take their eyes off Redu, who hit the stage on the last night of the festival like 10 tons of brick. He seemed like a medicine man, a worthy chief of some tribal place you've never been to but dream of. People gawked—and then they started to dance.

"The audience becomes my 'beatfreakquinzy' and I encourage them to dance," Redu tells me. "I encourage them to be free—move around however they feel, because that's what's real."

The nonjudgmental freedom to just DANCE is what makes a Vockah Redu show magical, and, dare I say, spiritual. You don't really care if Redu is gay or straight or a "sissy"—you just want to follow his lead and dance with him. He calls out, and you want to respond.

"My music speaks to gay, straight, young, old, aliens, and monsters. The music is from me, Redu, to you, and we are all one nation, under the Creator. I am proud as a performer because I reflect an image of me—and when I'm done with a show, and everyone's happy, we make a beautiful reflection of us in the mirror."