As leader of the notoriously nasty 2 Live Crew, Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell was all horned as much as bring his group’s brand of raunchy rap to Freaknik — the black spring-break blowout that took over Atlanta in the course of the third weekend of April — in the ’90s.
“I just brought the ‘freak’ to Freaknik. Anyone needed to do it,” says Campbell in the brand new Hulu documentary “Freaknik,” which he executive-produced with Atlanta music insiders akin to producer Jermaine Dupri, rapper 21 Savage and longtime publicist Tresa Sanders.
But beyond all of the booty-shaking before “twerking” was even a word, the “Me So Horny” rapper sums up the cultural impact that made Freaknik — as Lil Jon describes — “the best black gathering in America.”
“It was our Woodstock,” says Campbell. “They’d their Woodstock, it was ours. We was just having an excellent f—king time.”
“I’ve been telling folks that this documentary is absolutely about black joy — young black people finding themselves in a world that didn’t really form of make room for them,” “Freaknik” director P. Frank Williams told The Post.
“That’s why they created Freaknik as their very own form of version of Daytona Beach, and so …this documentary celebrates black joy, black liberation, black economics, black freedom, even black sexuality.”
The documentary — which began streaming on Thursday after premiering on the South by Southwest Festival earlier this month — traces how Freaknik began as a picnic in Atlanta’s Piedmont Park in 1983.
It was founded by a gaggle of scholars on the Atlanta University Center — which united enrollees at HBCUs Morehouse College, Spelman College and Clark Atlanta University — as a substitute for many who were staying on campus during spring break, many because they couldn’t afford to go home.
“So we said, ‘Let’s plan a picnic. We’re going to have a picnic during spring break,’ ” says Amadi Boon, one in all the Freaknik founders, in the doc.
And the mixture of “freak” and “picnic” that gave the event its name had far more innocent intentions than it would suggest, reminiscent of the party energy of Chic’s 1978 disco classic “Le Freak.”
“People think that the ‘freak’ is freaky, but once we were doing the ‘freak,’ it wasn’t scandalous, nevertheless it was fun,” says one other founder, Monique Tolliver.
Freaknik would grow beyond its humble, community-based beginnings. “What started off as a necessity for us as a fill-in spring break event definitely became something that filled a void for other black college students in the world,” says Boon.
By the ’90s, Freaknik — with its “economic tornado” of music, fashion, food and pimped-out rides — had sparked Atlanta’s growth right into a mecca of “this culture of lovely blackness,” as described by the ATL rapper-turned-reality star Rasheeda.
It especially helped put Atlanta on the music map, with the likes of Usher, Outkast, T.I. and Cee Lo Green — who’s interviewed in the doc — all in the Freaknik mix before they became stars, in addition to So So Def Records founder Dupri.
“You possibly can’t tell the story of Freaknik without the music,” said Williams. “A number of the hip-hop stars that emerge later got here from this form of Freaknik era. I don’t think which you can have Latto, Lil Baby, Future, Metro Boomin, all of those people without that foundation.”
But things began to get a bit of too freaky at Freaknik because the ’90s wore on, because the epic weekend began to draw greater than just college students.
“Freaknik became more concerning the ‘freak’ than the ‘nic,’ ” says jazz singer Kathleen Bertrand, a Spelman graduate, who recalls one portable peep show.
“There was a flatbed truck,” she says. “I’m sitting behind this truck, and there are women … all sitting with their legs wide open and no underwear. It was insane.”
It reached a degree of “no coming back” for even founder Sharon Toomer. “Once I saw definitively the degradation of girls, I had reached my fill with Freaknik,” she says.
And after facing mounting political opposition and police presence, Freaknik ended after 1999.
However the legend of its glory days — without social media and barely any Web — lives on.
“We found a spot where we could possibly be free and have an excellent time, where we could take heed to music, we could talk, we could party, we could exchange numbers, we could fellowship,” said Williams.
“And it was a spot where we could possibly be secure.”