The 2020s have been a season of reflection. People are going back to the 90s to experience pieces of life that were only once available through old VHS tapes and photos painted from the disposal cameras of the time.
The ongoing pandemic has left us at home for nearly three years now, most people were left to go through their family archives and the ones of their communities, leaving them to discover new things about what was happening before they were born. Freaknik was one of the moments we all gravitated toward unanimously. Before going back to Freaknik was a dream, only a fantasy for younger generations, but now it’s a party, a hairstyle, and people dressing in clothes that look like they came straight out of a time machine.
It began as a way for Black college students in the Atlanta area to celebrate during Spring Break since everyone couldn’t make it home. The celebration started as a picnic for the college students in Atlanta and surrounding areas to congregate and ended as a meeting ground for over 200,000 Black people from all over the country to break from the norm and have what they thought was fun in a new city.
In the “Shake It Up, Shake It Down: AUC Students’ Perspective on Freaknik” video on YouTube, Sharon Toomer, the founder of Freaknik said, “When we first started there were 50 to 60 students, we decided to get together in Piedmont Park. There was barbecue, there was music, there was beer and dancing, just an opportunity to get together.”
Freaknik peaked in the mid-90s when all aspects of Black culture were in the limelight, from TV and music, taking its impact into fashion and culture. Today Freaknik has a new life, through music, clothes, and media, we see everyone reliving the times we were not physically a part of. There are themed parties, events honoring the moment, and people bringing the hoochie aesthetic to the forefront today.
Creators online like @Herneshiaa have taken us through a time machine back to the heyday of Black art through her hair. With the traditional updos and the dramatic baby hair, it looks as if she sat in the beautician’s chair and took a time machine back to 1996. Whether it’s a red 27 piece that is fashioned into a finger-waved mullet, or one of those old ponytails you had to put into the microwave, Neshia and her mom Ms. Nikki sit in the living room in front of a mirror creating art that is taking us through time.
However, being a hoochie is not only apparent in the aesthetics of the generation who missed out on being freaky in the streets of Atlanta. Back in the 90s, being a hoochie was the same as being a hoe. With the 2 Live Crew’s 1995 song “Hoochie Mama” from the film Friday, released the same year, being a hoochie meant you were the same type of woman Joi was in the movie, having another man in bed with her while on the phone chastising Craig, the booty shorts and the big dookie braids. You knew the kind of women they were commenting on once she came on the screen accompanied by the Miami Bass sound.
The music today has a similar sentiment but from the opposite perspective. When Uncle Luke and the 2 Live Crew talked about being a hoochie, it was like that was what all the woman was. Today being a hoochie is all that and then some, we are in the season of reclamation. And it has never been more evident than seeing Sexyy Red at the concert venue/club Complex in Downtown Oakland a little over a month ago.
At the height of her career, Sexyy Red is on tour with Drake. “Pound Town” took off at the beginning of the year, and by the summer she was on fire and released her second project, Hood Hottest Princess, and had everyone in the streets yelling “Skee Yee” along with her.
In Oakland, it was a different feeling in the air than what her music gave her fans. It was freezing, people were circled the block on Broadway braving the cool temperatures to see Big Sexyy in the flesh. People wore red, one-piece Poster Girl-esque body suits, and their finest club attire. I showed up around 10:30, thinking I was beating the normal crowd at Complex, but I guess everyone had the same idea.
The line went past the now-closed CVS that once sat on the corner. People were standing around getting all of their pre-gaming in, drinking whatever canned alcohol they came with from the prior events, breaking the seal and urinating on the sides of buildings, and naming their predictions for the night.
Complex has changed since the last time I attended an event here in 2019, it’s now a full club experience, sections included. The line progressively got longer, making its way down the block nearing the intersection of 15th Street, and more people started to come, some to attend, and some to spectate. The line eventually inches forward, men were scouting the women in line for their sections like vultures orbiting around an immobile animal.
The night got later, the line slowly crept closer to the door. Eventually, it ends up raining and the fire truck pulls up to the venue to take care of something out of my vantage point. At this point, I have been in line for an hour and have only made it to the corner. Girls and guys alike are maneuvering their way around the line to figure out who they know or to sweet talk the bouncers. I stand in line alone waiting and hoping time goes by faster.
I have made it to the corner now, and the same two Box Chevys keep circling the block playing music that doesn’t match the vibe of who the crowd was there for. It isn’t until the infamous Emergency Cuts haircut ambulance pulls up that we glimpse what may happen once Sexyy Red pulls up and if the people waiting will ever make it inside the venue.
The crowd was inching closer and closer to the door the Drake concert had just let out and the drunk people were making their way from the Chase Center to Complex for their second serving of Sexyy for the night. At this point we are at the front of the line, a barricade splits up to make one line for people with sections inside and people who were there for the show. All night there was buzz about the event being oversold, and once racing up those three flights of stairs. The murmurs were correct.
Making it to the top floor of Complex, the sweat immediately started to form on my head, neck, back, and arms. The people with glasses had to remove them from the room’s humidity. The 800-capacity venue was definitely at its cap, and more people were pouring in to see what the night would have in store. People were forcing their way through the crowd to get to the front in hopes of getting the best glimpse of what was to happen on stage. Everyone in the crowd knew that soon waiting outside for three hours would pay off in some sort of fun.
The music was blaring, everyone was singing every song word for word and the crowd was anxious. The Detroit rapper, Baby Money had just left the stage and everyone was facing forward anxiously waiting to see what was about to unfold.
Sexyy Red walks from behind the curtains and the crowd erupts as everyone is looking forward in awe. She finally came to Oakland. For a while, it seemed like artists had been skipping out on Bay Area shows for years now, and to see Sexyy Red, someone who was reaching the height of her career all of 2023 come to the top floor of a hole-in-the-wall venue in Oakland was a sight to see. I mean she is on tour with Drake at this time!
I was close to the back of the crowd and my platform Dr. Martens did not give me the advantage I thought I would, so I was on my tip toes and watching the show through my zoomed-in camera the whole night, but the experience was worth it. When she got on stage, she opened with “Hellcats SRTs,” and her iconic “YOOM” adlib rang out over the gleeful crowd screaming and singing the song word for word.
She came out wearing a jumpsuit in her signature color, a 613 bust-down wig with crimps to the end, blackout aviator-style shades, and barefoot, the same way she ends up at all of her shows. (her newest piece of jewelry cementing her newfound fame was missing, the chain that reads “BIG SEXYY,” in the highest clarity of diamonds left her neck bare.)
Watching the show, Sexyy Red had the crowd enamored, it was amazing to see her get some random venue in Downtown Oakland. It shows how no matter where you go, any city’s music can connect with people who may not know anything about St. Louis besides Nelly, Chingy, The Cardinals, and now Sexyy Red. The legacy of hoochies, the way they show up today, and how their impact transcends space and time.
Hoochies from the past and the future continue to impact the way we do things. People like Sexyy Red exist in our everyday lives, and it is beautiful to see how the mundane things finally get a chance to be seen. From this performance at a random club in Oakland, Sexyy Red’s star did nothing but rise.
She completed the tour with Drake, was featured on For All the Dogs, announced her pregnancy, performed at the BET Hip-Hop Awards, and went on her first headline tour with 27 shows all over the US. Sexyy Red has shown us that she is unstoppable and that regular girls from the hood like her can win too.
“I’m a H double O C H I E,” Sexyy Red proclaims in “Sexyy Walk,” proving that the hoochies are not only a thing of our parents’ heyday. They are very much here and make themselves present in new ways. We don’t have an event like Freaknik happening yearly as it did once before, but the sexually liberated women in music today have been making space available for their fans to comfortably be themselves. I saw Sexyy Red twice last year, and the crowds at both shows captured the era a new generation is obsessed with in a new way.
From the fashions to the music and the dancing, with Sexyy Red and other rising artists, the hoochies are here to stay. And I’ll be right behind her.
Leave a Reply