Hold Up. Amarillo Is Hosting Freakniks Now?

Amarillo can be full of surprises sometimes. For everything we know about it, and for all the different things we can count on happening, there's always something that pops up and throws you for a loop.

Back in June, or around that time, something happened here that not many knew about, but it was a pretty well attended event.

Amarillo held its very own freaknik. Now, I know a lot of you are asking what exactly IS a freaknik? The name makes you think it should be something wrapped around Halloween, but it's far from that.

Allow me to give you a quick history of how the freaknik was born, and what exactly it is.

Back in 1982, the concept for it was born at Spellman College in Atlanta. The DC Metro Club, which was made up of students from Spellman and Morehouse College, was tasked with coming up with a party that could out-do the popular end of year party thrown by the California Club. The president of the DC Metro Club at the time, Schuyla Goodson, came up with the term freaknic. It was a play on the words freak and picnic.

Freak came from the popular Chic song "Le Freak", and it was one of the penultimate party songs of its time. Putting it together with the word picnic made it sound like a large picnic where people would be partying. Seems simple enough.

Over the years, the freaknik (as its now spelled) grew in massive popularity. Once Johnnetta B. Cole, the president of Spellman College at the time, banned the DC Metro Club from hosting it because there were liability issues, they hired a private promoter who grew the attendance of the event to 300,000 people.

In 1991, a second freaknik party was created, but it took a turn for the worse. This event invited controversial rap group 2 Live Crew, known for it's extremely controversial, and at time, degrading lyrics to play at the party.

From there, the freaknik became something completely different from what it was intended to be, and was shut down from happening in the city of Atlanta, and other places, in 1999.

Nowadays, they pop up randomly, but I don't know that I had ever heard about one happening in Amarillo, and I couldn't find one aside from the freaknik that took place this year. Wanna see what it looks like? Be careful opening this up at work. It's a little NSFW.

As you can see, for the most part, it's just people having a good time, dancing, partying, etc. Yes, somewhere in the video you see a fight appearing to break out, but a lot of people went running over to stop it quickly, rather than stand around and chant like a fight in high school.

The party appeared to be completely controlled, and just a gathering for people to go out and have a good time. A lot of freaky dancing, a little alcohol, and just tons of camaraderie. I'd love to see Amarillo have more events that can look like this, without the violence and drama happening.

Now I wonder if this will become an annual thing.