Freaknik: A Pictorial Montage

When you hear the term "Freaknik" or "Freaknic," a certain cannotation comes to mind: Unruliness, debauchery, black people having a good 'ole time with no regard to society's woes, traffic or otherwise. Is this characterization somewhat accurate?
In the immortal words of the familiar refrain on Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" album:
"Hell Yeah!"
Let's go down memory lane, Peachtree in fact, in pictures from Freakniks past.



Adina Howard was a household name back then.



Back then, there was "No Time" for fake ones.



Let's be honest: To some people, it was a paradise. To others, it was the day the niggaz took over.



Everybody was on a Creep in the mid-1990s.



Tunes of the times: "Swing low, sweet chariot and ... Let me Ride".



They didn't mean to be so destructive, use your heart to forgive.



People were on some "goobitty gooks" stuff too.



"Still clowning with the Underground, when they come around." - 2Pac, 1993



It was all about "Electric Relaxation" - Tribe Called Quest.









Fancy cars, wild women, men in a metropolis: In 1992, you couldn't ask for a better scenario.






Freaknik does not belong in the 21st century, it died unceromoniously in 1998, choked to death by Atlanta's politicians and beaurocracy. The free-wheeling and high times of the 1990s have been killed by the fearmongering and economic waste of the 2000s. It is what it is.
In conclusion, Freaknik was not a party, it was an idea, a mind-set. Thus, it can never truly die.
It exists in the mind.





















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Lina: Totally Slept On Singer of the Decade

If it wasn't for Michael Baisden's radio show, you probably wouldn't know the sounds of Lina, the Hidden Beach recording artist who has truly been an underground in her quest for stardom.
Lina has been around a loooong time, I should know, I copped her first joint, way back in the late 1990s. Immersed in the "neo soul" movement back then, urban radio just didn't get Lina's retro sound. But now, with the succes of people like Amy Winehouse and even Solange's earthy, '60s soul sound, it must be said that Lina did it first. The only difference is that Lina's sound actually went back further than the 1960s, she tapped into pre-jazz ragtime for her first album.
Will she ever break out?
Time will tell. Check out her latest, "My Man".

Should Hip-Hop Have an Age Limit?

No other music genre -- not rock n' roll, not pop, not classical, not jazz -- appeals to such a wide variety of age groups as does hip-hop. Since its humble beginnings in the 1970s, hip-hop was endeared itself to legions of fans due to the music, the dress, the lifestyle, etc.
But should it last forever?
It has become routine to see grown men -- some way past their primes -- wearing baseball caps forward, backward, tilted and more as there pants -- not unlike their jawlines -- increasingly sag to the Earth.
Has Russell Simmons made it acceptable for the perennially bald Baby Boomer to wear, dress and talk "hip-hop'? Or should those who were party-age in 1978 (when the first hip-hop hit "Rapper's Delight" took to the airwaves) turn in their long-held B-boy stances?
Alot of it depends on if you subscribe to the so-called "culture" associate with music: Remember, it used to be about graffiti-tagging, breakdancing and handing with the 'crew."
Is there a stopping point, when you say, reach 40? How long can you be a B-boy?
If you're middle-aged and you have a son or daughter and y'all are listening to the same music, for the same reasons, is that okay?
Or should the parent abandon their longheld love for something more "mature"?
Is hip-hop for youngens?

Rihanna channels '80s Look

Your girl RiRi sported a 1980s "Crush Groove" look recently to tap into her childhood.