"Freaknik, the party ghost — which is [who I play] — is holding a battle of the trillest. It's a rap battle. If you win the rap battle, the first prize is a lifetime supply of money, ho's and clothes. It's three dudes in the rap group and their weed man trying to make it to Freaknik. It's their trials and tribulations coming from Sweet Tea, Florida, all the way to Georgia. I play the Spirit of Freaknik. Everywhere I go, it's on and poppin'."
-Rapper/producer T-Pain, describing the plot of "Freaknik: The Musical," a TV special he helped write and produce for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. The animated film, which also features the voice talents of Andy Samberg, Snoop Dogg, Cee-Lo and Rick Ross, is loosely based around Freaknik, an annual party that bridged the Atlanta hip-hop community and spring breakers from area colleges. (You can't go to Freaknik any more, as protests from the city shut it down permanently following the last event in 1999.)
Pain told MTV News that even though it wasn't his original idea, he threw himself into it headlong once the idea was presented to him. "They came to me with the premise. I started scratching stuff off and getting new stuff," he said. "You can say I wrote it, but I didn't. It was my homeboy Carl [Jones], the same guy that does 'The Boondocks.' We had to get a lot of his help, direction and stuff like that. We all wrote it together. It was a good team of people that has no boundaries. We took it so far that the watered-down version is awesome."
"Freaknik: The Musical" airs on Sunday (March 7) at 11:30 p.m., and Pain's new album Revolver will be out later this year.