Jermaine Dupri announces he is creating a documentary about the iconic Freaknik Festival.
On Wednesday, the multiplatinum producer shared that he is creating a Freaknik documentary. In an Instagram post, Jermaine stands by the window of a high rise near the Atlanta Brave’s home at Truist Park, sharing the exciting news.
“This the first day of us shooting for the Freaknik documentary,” he says in the video. “So everybody that missed freaknik, we gon’ show y’all what y’all missed.”
Freaknik was created in 1983 by the students in the Atlanta University Center which includes Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Morris Brown College, and Spelman College.
The festival was originally intended for students who could not afford to travel back home for Spring Break. However, it quickly became popularized and grew in size over the years, welcoming HBCU students across the south.
By 1990, the event saw roughly 300,000 individuals pouring in from other states, Canada and the Caribbean.
Unfortunately by 1998, the Black College Spring Break planning committee called for Atlanta to ban the event. The committee wanted to ban the festival because of “lewd behavior,” criminal activity and the general strain it was putting on the city.
“We cannot support events that bring lewd activities, sexual assaults, violence against women and public safety concerns . Firetrucks not being able to reach victims, and ambulances not being able to reach hospitals in a timely manner,” committee chairman George Hawthorne said.
The following year, the committee tried to move the event to DeKalb County but was not successful. Uncle Luke attempted to bring back a “family friendly” version of the festival but failed due to COVID-19 restrictions.
