Freaknik: The Musical Review






I’ve been doing reviews for a while now. I have over 100 reviews, and I still have a huge list of games that I have to play and review. Recently however, I was thinking about doing other reviews, like of shows I like or something. I had a couple of ideas about what to do, but I didn’t know when to start. I recently saw a very interesting animation called Freaknik the Musical on Adultswim on March 7th. It then struck me that this would be a great way to start a different line of reviews. Let’s get started with this thugalicious rapping all-star musical.

The story starts off at a random house party thrown by these two guys who are actually a parody of Will Smith and Alfonso Robeiro from when they were in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The house party however turns out to be boring as heck. Even someone dies of boredom. Someone at the dull house party then speaks of something called Freaknik. The rest of the people however dismiss the fact that it ever existed. Then, out of nowhere, a crazy old man who is voiced by Lil Jon barges in and tells them the legend of Freaknik. After a fortunate accident that gets rid of the two lame house hosts, the rest of the people there circle up and summon the spirit of Freaknik. The whole world goes crazy as the spirit of Freaknik, voiced by T-Pain, decides to throw the world into a crazy party, where everyone starts dancing and going crazy for the return of Freaknik. On the other side of the spectrum are our three main protagonists, Big Virgil who is voiced by Young Cash, Light Skin voiced by Cee-Lo Green, and Big Uzi voiced by Rick Ross. All three of the guys are rappers living on rent control in a large house owned by one of their friends who grows weed. After hearing Freaknik announce a “battle of the bands”-like contest, all four of our heroes decide to get into their van and make it to the contest to win the ultimate prize.

Along the way, they meet some pretty interesting characters from a frat house that parties a lot, a ghetto Jesus, a copy cat crew that looks like a cleaned-up version of our heroes, funkadelic aliens, and an evil organization that tries to kill Freaknik. It plays out like any plot, like road-trip/buddy movies, with twists and turns that keep the story moving. The movie mostly focuses on the four guys who are trying to get to the contest, but keep getting into trouble. While that is going on however, the whole world is in love with Freaknik, since he has brought a lot of positive vibes and love back to the world, and the things he has done to make it better. The evil organization I mentioned is called the Boule. For some reason or another, they want to take down Freaknik so they can have control over all the African-American people again, instead of Freaknik sharing the love to everyone. Of course, in the end, the main heroes make it with the help of interesting characters, and save Freaknik from getting destroyed for good by the Boule.

The animation is rather unique, and I like the over-exaggerated character designs. I think one of my favorite designs for the characters has to be Freaknik himself. He is a black ghost with dollar signs and gold teeth. Of course, you can see him in the poster above. I like this style of designs since it’s more cartoonish, and this whole movie is supposed to be a little exaggerated and over the top. While I am not a big a fan of rap as I used to be, I find the soundtrack, as a whole one hour film, fun to listen to, and I have actually had a few of the songs stuck in my head. I also found the humor to be foul most of the time, but clever and funny. I laughed during the scene where they are in the ghettos and big Uzi goes, “ I didn’t know that the sun shines in the ghettos.” And then the moon shoots the sun down. I also found it funny in the scene when the character that is voiced by Young Cash gets out of the car to ask for directions even after being warned about not getting out of the car in the ghettos, and a servant of the ghetto Jesus stops him at gunpoint. The voice cast is actually amazing and huge. They have rappers like Lil Jon, Lil Wayne, Snoop Dog, and some comedians like Andy Samberg and Charlie Murphy, who all do a very wonderful job voicing the characters.

However, there are some things I don’t like. I hate how this was only an hour long. I think they could have easily made it two hours long. I say this because it seems rushed, and some characters didn’t seem necessary because of how short the special was. Now, I know that rap music has a lot of foul words in it, but I think they could have downplayed the “N” word a little, but I digress since rap music is about the struggle of getting from the ghettos and poverty to where they are now and what not.

Overall, I found Freaknik the Musical to be a fun and enjoyable one-hour flick. It comes back on March 11th if you want to see it. I will warn you though, that there is a lot of foul language, and I mean a lot. I wonder if they will do a series with this idea since I wouldn’t mind watching another music-based show like Brendon Small’s Metalocalypse. I hope they also come out with this on DVD.

This special gets a 9.4 out of 10

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