As "Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never told" (2024 release; 82 min.) opens, rapper Killer Mike reflects on how Atlanta reflects on how Atlanta has become a Mecca" for black arts, culture and everything else. We then go back in time to "1983" when the first Black College Spring Break (later renamed Freaknik) was organized by Atlanta HBCU's. At this point we are 10 minutes into the movie...

Couple of comments: this is the latest from producer-writer-director P. Frank Williams. He has recruited a slew of talking heads that were there to witness it all (or in part if they were late comers), with many of them also serving as executive producers, including Luke Campbell, Jermaine Dupri, 21 Savage, Geraldine Porras, and others. I was generally not familiar with Freaknik and was curious to check this out. As with many organically grown events that as some point evolve into something much bigger, there are some good things and some not so good things, but it is a fascinating look into Black America, not unlike, say, the Oscar-winning "Summer Of Soul" documentary was a few years ago. To be fair, "Freaknik" suffers a bit when compared to "Summer of Soul", which was just magical from start to finish. "Freaknik" is magical for a while, and then suddenly it isn't anymore, before becoming ugly altogether.

"Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told" premiered at this year's SXSW film festival and then started streaming on Hulu last weekend, where I caught it last night. If you have any interest in either Atlanta or in Black history, I'd readily suggest you check it out and draw your own conclusion.

Has a really strange message, and in the end it was just a very long advertisement. Because these people go from celebration to lamentation to "hey, it's a new generation of freaks". It was very detailed and if you are into this scene then it is certainly a must see. But if not than it's like watching someone else's vacation pictures. For me it was a perfect example of learning from the past so you don't repeat your mistakes. But the message at the end is ill received. This was an organically formed celebration that grew to an unmanageable spectacle. Let the youth create their own thing and grow a more homogeneous celebration of youth and liberation than just tacking your old dirty underwear to their flag. In the end the message was that this thing fell apart because of the degrading treatment of women. Yet read the lyrics of the top hip-hop rap songs and you'll see that nothing has changed and surely these are going to be the same top-billed performers at these new events. You end up getting what you preach and this thing died because as they said it grew into a beast that needed to be destroyed. Why resurrect a defeated monster?