The Levitt AMP Chattanooga Music Series continues to animate the Historic MLK District again this week with New Orleans-based rapper and ambassador of Bounce music, Big Freedia. The concert will be Thursday on the lawn of the Bessie Smith Cultural Center, beginning at 6 p.m. 

Review for Big Freedia: 

Big Freedia, is renowned for popularizing a New Orleans genre of hip-hop called bounce music. It's noted for up-tempo call-and-response elements and plenty of backside shaking. As the undisputed ambassador of the energetic, New Orleans-based Bounce movement, Big Freedia is never afraid to twerk, wiggle, and shake her way to self-confidence, and is encouraging her fans to do the same. The New Orleans native has been in the music business for decades and has been featured on major projects -- including Beyoncé’s 2016 smash “Formation” -- to highlight the influence of bounce.

The opening act will be award winning inner-city competitive dance company, TInillik, founded and directed by local dance choreographer, Felicion McMillon-Diakhate.  Tinillik was designed to use dance as a means to keep kids positively engaged. 

This is the second year in a row that Chattanooga has been selected as one of 15 small to mid-sized towns and cities across the nation to win a Levitt AMP Grant Award of $25,000 in matching funds to present a free concert series by The Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation, a national funder of creative placemaking that empowers communities to inject new life into underused public spaces through free, outdoor concerts. 

Presented by Jazzanooga, in partnership with the Urban League Chattanooga, Bessie Smith Cultural Center, Chattanooga Fun and City of Chattanooga – Government, this year’s series will feature a diverse lineup of high caliber talent spanning genres like Blues, New Orleans Bounce, Jazz and Afro-Latin. There will also be over 20 local vendors providing food, beverages and community informational resources.

The series is funded by the Levitt Foundation, Lyndhurst Foundation and Benwood Foundation along with 2018 Community Corporate Sponsor, Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union.

The free concert series will be held Thursday nights on the lawn of the Bessie Smith Cultural Center from Aug. 23-Oct. 25.

There will be a wide variety of genres, some familiar and some new…including local, regional and national talent. Although every performer’s genre will vary, each artist will tie into the history and heritage of the Big Nine, continuing to enhance the MLK neighborhood as a cultural destination. See the full lineup here.