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“I think with social media right now, we often feel like we’re connected,” Geraldine Porras, producer of the documentary, told Blavity’s Shadow and Act. “But we’re missing that real community feel and being able to be in these spaces and be creative together, and Freaknik was such a great representation of this safe space for young Black people to come together and commune and build and what was born from that.”
While people will be tuning into Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told in hopes of viewing never-seen-before footage of the festivities, executive producer and director P. Frank Williams said this is about a much larger story than just letting loose and partying.
“I think everybody’s just tuning in for the turn-up to see who was dancing and getting buck wild on it … but it was about more than just a party,” Williams told Blavity. “And for me, it’s always good to try to peel back the layers of these things, and I think what we did was we took this orange and you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s just sweet.’ But there are other parts of it. When you pull it back, there’s way more to Freaknik than that.”
“It’s about politics. It’s about race. It’s about music. It’s about culture. It’s about Black freedom, Black joy, economics,” he continued. “There’s a lot of things other than just the party. We lured you in with the party because you’re waiting to see if your auntie or your mom or whoever was doing and maybe she was there, but maybe she also found the love of her life. Maybe she moved to Atlanta to get a job. I just want to make sure that people know it was more than just a party.”
While this is the sentiment throughout the film, epic partying did indeed also take place, and it laid the groundwork for the Atlanta music scene that the world knows and loves today.
“When we came up with this idea to do it, it was not just about showing some wild and crazy party, which most people on the tail end know about,” Uncle Luke said. “And if you Google it, that’s all you’ll see. You won’t see the historical significance of the actual documentary when it comes to how the Atlanta music scene was built, how JD (Jermaine Dupri) became such an iconic figure in building his company, and the things his company did to support the movement of Freaknik through the music.”
He continued: “You’ll see these young folks that come together who were college students and they just wanted to have a little party in the park, and what it turned into with politics getting a hold of it and it became what it was. So when we came up with this, we just knew that this was gonna be an iconic story that nobody had heard of. They didn’t have the real story of it, which they’ll get in this film.”
Jermaine Dupri reflected on a history lesson about Atlanta that the documentary focuses on.
“What’s very interesting about Atlanta right now is that through Freaknik, all of these people came from out of town. So you hear about all the ATLiens that naturally come from Atlanta saying that our city has been taken over by out-of-towners, right?” Dupri told Blavity. “Well it’s ultimately the truth, but at the same time, the city always had out-of-towners because of the HBCUs. It’s just a story that’s never really been told correctly, so you can almost, like, understand why the city moves the way the city moves.”
“Atlanta has always been a city that has welcomed out-of-towners, especially Black, African American people. When they come, they learn that there’s always been Black teachers out here, Black dentists, a Black doctor may live next door to you, these people aren’t just basketball and football players … and I feel like the documentary kind of gives you all of that information. I’m really proud that we did this because it definitely clears up a lot of questions that I know people have, and it’s also telling our story the way it’s supposed to be told.”
Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told drops Thursday on Hulu.
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