For those who have been asleep—or maybe just living outside of New Orleans—Big Freedia is a transsexual rapper of “bounce,” a New Orleans-style party music wherein the MC exists almost entirely to tell you exactly how to shake your ass. Freedia’s transexuality matters little outside of the fact that she dresses better than any rapper, and her shows attract a mixture of all types of people, black and white, open and non-judgmental, all obviously energized by the mere existence of fun, hardcore hip-hop dance music that lacks misogyny (Freedia’s most used pronouns are certainly “her” and “she”), gun talk, and of course, homophobia.

There exist almost too many angles from which to evaluate Big Freedia’s new EP Scion A/V Presents: Big Freedia (released by the car company Scion’s lifestyle marketing division). Bounce is slagged for being repetitive and simplistic, but Freedia’s producers are stretching the genre’s sonic palette nicely. While triggerman remains the default beat throughout this five-song EP, “Almost Famous” layers in icy techno keyboards and rhythms rarely heard in bounce, and Freedia raps actual verses about her recent fame, between obligatory chants to “drop it,” etc. The result is surprisingly listenable, even on the couch. “Excuse” and “It’s a Shame (Crazy Big Dunkey)” are more straightforward bounce tracks that nonetheless feature subtle headphone details that don’t draw attention away from Freedia’s barked instructions.

Unfortunately, Freedia’s last and most interesting track, “Let it Go Nah”—an old school roller-skating jam lacking the triggerman but replete with ultra-choppy bounce vocals—doesn’t work very well, mostly because of the vocoder on Freedia’s voice. No one should ever use vocoder until it too is old-school. And even then…

But from the angle of bounce music growing to a national audience, Big Freedia’s new EP is definitely her best foot forward, as well as the best the genre could hope for in terms of world-wide representation. If Freedia remains ambitious and keeps experimenting—even when it doesn’t work—she may take bounce to the mainstream without any of the genre’s former baggage.

Download the EP at soundcloud.com/scionav/sets/scion-a-v-presents-big/.