The executive producers, including legendary producer Jermaine Dupri, provocative Miami rap star Luke Campbell and current Atlanta hip-hop performer 21 Savage, cover all the bases, from Freaknik’s humble beginnings to its peak popularity to its collapse.
“There were way more layers than I thought when I was a 21, 22-year-old kid just trying to party,” said P. Frank Williams, an executive producer who attended Freaknik in the 1990s.
Expert voices range from academics like Marc Lamont Hill and Maurice Hobson to artists like CeeLo Green, Rasheeda Frost and Lil Jon to former Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed. (Fellow former mayor Bill Campbell, who presided over the city during the height of Freaknik, is only seen in a few vintage news clips.)
“Freaknik really started the evolution of Atlanta being this hub of fashion, of music, of this culture of beautiful Blackness,” Frost said in the doc.
Here are five major points gleaned from the documentary:
The origins of Freaknik were modest and positive: The documentarians were able to gather the key originators of Freaknik from the 1980s to discuss how it all started as a modest picnic gathering of students from historically Black colleges on spring break in Piedmont Park. The name, originally Freaknic, was taken from Chic’s disco-era hit song “Le Freak.”
“Many people couldn’t afford to go home,” said Monique Tolliver, one of the creators, in the doc. “I was one of them. I decided, hey, we are all here. Let’s do something.”
The doc shows plenty of grainy 1980s-era video and faded photos of students chilling out and having a good time.
Then year by year, Freaknik became more popular, fueled by word of mouth and pop culture. In 1988, Morehouse College alum Spike Lee’s HBCU-set “School Daze” referenced Freaknik. In 1989, an entire episode of the popular NBC sitcom “A Different World” revolved around students wanting to go to Freaknik.
“It was…
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