On “Tamron Hall,” Grammy award-winning artist and producer Jermaine Dupri opened up about the passing of his mentor Otis Redding III and his impact on Dupri’s producing career. He also addressed the misconceptions about his new Hulu documentary “Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told.” See the video clip inside….
Jermaine Dupri on the death of Otis Redding III and the impact he had on Dupri:
“Well we just lost my inspiration for production was Otis Redding III, he was Otis Redding’s son, he just passed away. He produced my first record. I was 14 at the time, 14, 15, he was young, in his probably late teens or early 20s or something like that but he was young and I went to the studio with him and I was selling him what I wanted to do. He was trying to do what I was telling him but he was also showing me stuff. He had his own studio and he was just a young guy who was doing it but he was the one that pushed the button to make me want to produce.”
Dupri on the new Freaknik documentary he’s working on with Hulu:
“I’ve been waiting for this question so…I want to say this to all of those people out there that my vision of ‘Freaknik’ is really a story about the south in Atlanta. It’s not really a story about what everybody keeps talking about. I don’t like that part because I feel like it’s a little disrespectful. I’m just telling the story of Atlanta and how Atlanta was built into the place that it is today. People came to Atlanta through Freaknik and they stayed. People would move, like I say that in ‘Welcome to Atlanta,’ people came to Atlanta for Freaknik and they stayed and that’s how Atlanta has become this multicultural, multi-city place. Freaknik played a big role in that period.” Dupri adds, “I can’t say that you won’t see freaking. It is called ‘Freaknik,’ it is what it is. It’s the 40th anniversary of Freaknik, it’s the 50th anniversary of hip-hop and it’s the 30th anniversary of So So Def.”
