N.E.R.D.'s hit song "Lemon" owes a lot to New Orleans bounce

For the final episode of Earworm I'm digging into N.E.R.D.'s hit song "Lemon" featuring Rihanna. Its sound is quintessential Pharrell: happy, energetic, and bouncy. The more I listened to it though, the more I realized that its bouncy energy was inspired by a genre of hip-hop that has rarely trickled into the mainstream - New Orleans Bounce. To learn more about the genre and to get the definitive answer on whether "Lemon" is a bounce song, I spoke with Big Freedia, a Native of New Orleans and an artist widely credited with bringing bounce music to the masses.