It’s an accepted axiom of spring break that you can retake a class but you can’t relive a party. Until now, that was the case for Freaknik, the annual springtime bass party that drew hundreds of thousands of black college students to Atlanta during the 1980s and 1990s. Traffic traced. The music screamed. The boots shook.
“It’s a nostalgic time when we weren’t all on our phones or trying to take a selfie,” said P. Frank Williams, the director of “Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told,” a documentary that aims to immerse viewers in the celebration when it premieres Thursday on Hulu. “We were just enjoying the moment. It was about these young black people finding freedom in a world that really didn’t welcome them, in a city that is one of the blackest places on the planet.”
Over time, Freaknik exploded from its roots as a local event organized by students at the Atlanta University Center into a nexus for Black students from across the country. “They said it was Freaknik, and I just thought I want to bring the freak to ‘nik,’ and then it went from zero to 100 real quick,” said Luther Campbell, the rapper known as Uncle Luke, who is an executive producer. of the film.
Police and elected officials cracked down on Freaknik after 1999 amid public safety concerns and reports of sexual assault. Other cities in recent years have tried to curb Black Spring breakers through curfews, bag checks and traffic rerouting. Miami Beach launched a social media campaign this year to discourage visitors.
To tell the story of a party that became legendary before social media, “Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told” highlights several of the artifacts of the era that were essential to the party experience. We spoke to the filmmakers about five of them.
Video cameras
Don’t be surprised if you find your father or aunt making faces at the documentary. “Freaknik” features footage from VHS and DVD tapes that had been safely locked away in attics and basements for decades.
The filmmakers first searched Campbell’s garage for Freaknik footage. Afterwards, Campbell and pioneering music producer Jermaine Dupri, who also executive produced the documentary, asked followers on social media for their old Freaknik tapes.
“That was your social media,” Campbell said. “The same thing we do now today when we post, back then, you saw the video among your friends at home and you liked it.”
The movie was released. Most of it had to be digitized since it was originally captured by the large over-the-shoulder video cameras that were ubiquitous at Freaknik.
“Those video cameras were about 70 pounds,” said Nikki Byles, “Freaknik” producer. “People walked around with them, willingly on your shoulder.”
Reviewing the submissions took months. “Sometimes you see these tapes and it can be a combination of Freaknik and someone being baptized on the same tape,” said Geraldine Porras, the film’s host.
Those who submitted the film signed releases for it to be used in the documentary. And, since Freaknik took place primarily on the streets of Atlanta, bystanders caught on camera could be filmed with no expectation of privacy. Porras described a balance in portraying the essence of the party against its satanic moments.
“We wanted to capture the essence of being young and having fun,” he said. “Then we took liberties with the most obvious things to block people out, because at the end of the day, we don’t want to expose anyone. This is not the documentary.”
Freaknik brought a tapestry of hairstyles, especially among women hoping to stand out. “The beehives, the waves, the feathered hair — they were all really epic hairstyles of the time,” Porras said.
Blow it up! Bronner Brothers’ Spritz Gold Super Hold held these styles together.
“Pump It Up hair spray could literally hold a body against a wall,” Byles said. “There was no other way to live your life during Freaknik without having Pump It Up. It still has a distinct smell. Smells like flowers and sticks. I don’t know how sticky it smells, but that’s what it smelled like.’
Porras added: “You were out there all day in Atlanta. It can get hot. You meet people. You walk to many places. You really had to make sure your hair was on point and Pump It Up spray was the way to make sure you did that.”
Daisy Dukes
The skimpy denim shorts that showed off the architecture of one’s backside were a Freaknik staple.
“Girls would go and cut their pants and because they couldn’t afford the same outfit, they’d be designers themselves,” Campbell said. “What you see right now today that people are spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on is the look of it back then.”
For Porras, the shorts represented a move beyond fashion.
“Atlanta is a very conservative place, so the ’90s and the Daisy Dukes felt like a representation of women breaking free and wanting to express themselves through their fashion, through dance,” Porras said. “This was booty shaking or twerking before twerking was even a word.”
Samurai Suzuki
Japanese automaker Suzuki introduced the all-wheel-drive Samurai to the United States in 1985 with a huge advertising campaign boasting its “rugged, tough and fire-fighting” characteristics.
“They were gassing them,” Biles said. “Everybody had a Samurai Suzuki.”
The vehicle became a favorite of Freaknik descent due to its affordability, reliability, and detachable soft top that allowed rear seat passengers to socialize in the great outdoors.
“That was the epitome of cascading at the time,” Porras said.
For Dupri, the car represented a time when people would be willing to drive hours just to party.
“Now, everyone acts like they have to fly and girls don’t even seem to get in a car and drive hours to a place and just hang out,” she said.
Despite its loyal following, Suzuki withdrew the Samurai from the United States market in 1995 after poor sales and amid a protracted dispute with Consumer Reports over its assessment that the vehicle was rollover prone.
Sampling cassettes
Campbell and other music promoters used street gangs to approach idling cars during Freaknik and hand out sample tapes. Most featured a full song or two and snippets of other tracks, whetting appetites for the rest of the album.
“I’m a Black independent record label, the first hip-hop label in the South, with no budget,” Campbell said. “My budget was really about getting students to listen to music, be able to take it home wherever they went, and then spread the music.”
Dupri said the traffic stop offered an opportunity. “They might not hear it right away, but they will at some point because they’re stuck in traffic,” he said.
When Outkast’s debut, “Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik,” was released in April 1994, Freaknik became a major platform for the Atlanta rap duo. “The Outkast sample spread like a weed,” Rico Wade, the album’s producer, says in the documentary. “It was like you could hear it in everyone’s car and it meant you were cool.”
Dupri added, “When we talk about Southern hip-hop, especially from those who think Atlanta’s been running the game for so long, the beginning of that game started at Freaknik.”