Freaknik: The wildest party ever told (now streaming on Hulu), from co-executive producers Luther Campbell, Jermaine Dupri and 21 Savage and directed by P. Frank Williams, traces the history and events of a garden party in Atlanta that began as a gathering of college students at historically black colleges and universities. . area schools like Morehouse, Spelman and Clark Atlanta, and grew into a cultural force that put the ATL on the map as a Black Mecca. Of course, it could never last. But in its best years, Freaknik represented maximum fun. “The interstates. The highway. Nobody moves,” says Lil Jon in Freaknik: The wildest party ever told. “It was just the ultimate street party. “Not on one street, but in the entire city of Atlanta it was a street party.”
FREAKNIK: THE WILDEST PARTY EVER TOLD: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: “If you look at a Freaknik photo album from the ’80s to the ’90s, you’ll literally get a timeline of black fashion and hair during that era,” says author, academic, and media personality Marc Lamont Hill in Freaknik: The The wildest party ever told. Over a period of time approximately school daze and A different world in the late ’80s and ’80s and Outkast. Surplayalisticadillacmuzik and Funkdafied Since Da Brat in 1994, the event grew, grew, grew, until it all became a destination event, and a traffic jam crossed with a party. Freaknik includes interviews with the party’s co-founders: Sharon Toomer, Emma Horton and Amadi Boon were HBCU students in 1983 when they first combined “freak” and “picnic” to form a place where kids not traveling during spring break They could celebrate. . It follows the party’s expansion as it became an annual draw for young black people across the country. And it addresses the city’s eventual crackdown on the event, which ties directly into decisions Atlanta leaders made as the city prepared to host the 1996 Olympics.
Campbell, Dupri and 21 Savage are interviewed in Freaknikwhich also features commentary from Jalen Rose, Killer Mike, Too Short, Erick Sermon, Lil Jon and Rasheeda Frost of Love and hip-hop: Atlanta, as well as the context of scholars such as Maurice Hobson and Ronda Racha Penrice and former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. And for most of those interviewed, the feeling that Freaknik conveyed was fun in its purest and most unpredictable form. It was enriching to arrive in the Piedmont Park area, the traditional center of the party, and find a free space for public expression fueled by youthful exuberance and celebration of black culture. This was in the days before TikTok and everything else. Instead, social media was fueled by human contact, and in an event like Freaknik, promulgated by the prevalence of VHS camcorders, whose footage dominates The wildest party ever told.
Then came international attention on Atlanta and friction between white and black economic interests in the city increased. “The Olympics were great for Atlanta,” says the legendary Jerry in the document. “But the Olympics weren’t very good for Freaknik.” While the party had long since expanded beyond its spring break roots at black colleges, by 1996 the vibe was changing, with an element that brought with it disrespectful behavior and, in some cases, sexual assault. This evolution, combined with heavy-handed police tactics, ultimately changed Freaknik’s energy. And while nostalgia drives new interest in a sanitized version of the 21st-century holiday, the wild times of yesteryear are what those who were there will always remember.
What movies will it remind you of? There are parallels between Freaknik: The wildest party ever told and Woodstock ’99: peace, love and rage, the 2021 documentary that explores how an event that began as a hippie love festival turned ugly and aggressive. And T-Pain voiced the ghost of Freaknik Past in the 2010 Cartoon Network/Adult Swim animated film. Freaknik: The Musicalwhich also featured the voices of Lil Wayne, Rick Ross and CeeLo Green.
Performance worth seeing: Rasheeda Frost is a particularly entertaining interview on Freaknik. The businesswoman and love and hip hop The favorite calls it like she sees it, whether recalling the look of a time before social media and enhancements – “No BBL, just all real, black beauty” – or characterizing the controversies that came after. “Of course she was going to start having her problems. Because, shit, a lot of times these white people don’t want to see all these black people here kicking and having fun like them.”
Memorable dialogue: From Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell’s perspective, he had a lot to do with amplifying the party from the tone of its early days to the strange vibe of its heyday. “In ’93 it was a beautiful and peaceful party. People walking down the street, all these beautiful things. You have this innocent little Freaknik. Then you have this crazy motherfucker in Miami, me, making all these wild, sexually motivated songs, and then you have these sexually charged college students. And then you add all that to this nice, beautiful city called Atlanta, with all these black people, and it becomes a perfect storm.”
Sex and skin: The filmmakers are careful to digitize the occasional mischievous part and the faces they are attached to. (Feaknik’s original assistants who are now parents are probably safe from the crazy decisions of their past.) Freaknik It often feels like a highlight of the joy of having fun, with late-’80s proto-twerking, widespread dancing on car roofs, a discussion of the distinction between “Daisy Dukes” and “Coochie Cutters” and the VHS from the 90s. Images of the scene inside Atlanta strip clubs.
Our opinion: “Actually, those kids don’t know what it was really like.” Freaknik: The wildest party ever told is driven by nostalgia, but the sentiment takes different forms depending on the age and experience of the speaker. The original attendees light up when interviewed about what happened. How car culture influenced the appeal and mystique of the event: So many VHS images of turquoise and pink Suzuki Samurais with the occupants of the small SUV. crashing – or how Freaknik arrived with the security of industrial-strength flirting and new definitions of sexual presentation. (Liberation for women in space and “expression without fear of violent reactions,” as filmmaker Anjanette Levert puts it). For many of these people, the revitalized versions of Freaknik driven by the interest of a contemporary generation of young people miss the point, which for them arises from the anything-goes ethos of the 1980s and 1990s editions. But it’s still nostalgia either way. Perhaps 21 Savage has the most unbiased view, from his vantage point in a time when social media can reduce everything to staged moments and performative antics. The 31-year-old Atlanta-based rapper says all the images and anecdotes from the ’90s Freaknik gatherings resonate with him “because they knew how to have fun. The world was much purer. It was something organic and real, and just for the people.”
Our call: TRANSMIT IT. Stream it to enjoy a nearly non-stop stream of wild VHS footage from a time that wasn’t that long ago but looks very different from our own. Stream it to get nostalgic, whether you’re a veteran Freaknik fan or if you’re younger and looking for guidance on how to really have fun. But you can also transmit Freaknik: The wildest party ever told as a warning about how a city allowed its attempts at regulation to conflict with the core intentions of the meeting.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is a freelance writer and editor living in Chicago. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.
