The decline of a ‘Super Freak’: The sorry death of Rick James
The landscape of funk and disco music in America has always been an incredibly broad and diverse scene. What started in the underground clubs of places like New Orleans or Manhattan soon found itself firmly in the mainstream of US pop culture, giving rise to a plethora of larger-than-life artists, including Rick James. James enjoyed a level of success and acclaim afforded to very few musicians, particularly in the funk and disco scene, yet that unimaginable level of fame quickly caused more trouble than it was worth.
Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, James had always been something of a troubled individual. During his teenage years, the budding young musician found a penchant for drugs, alcohol, and crime, an interest which would stick with him throughout his rise to the top of the US funk scene. In the mid-1960s, James fled to Toronto, Canada, in order to avoid being drafted into the army during the Vietnam War. It was during this period that he first began his musical career, forming The Mynah Birds, who aimed to blend funk and soul with defiant rock and roll.
Eventually, this path led James to the iconic Motown Records, where he would forge friendships with legendary soul stars like Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. However, this golden age was cut short when James was discovered by the US army and forced to spend several months behind bars, performing hard labour. After being released, James would go on to establish himself as a celebrated funk and soul star, releasing various records with Motown, Columbia, and A&M Records. For mainstream audiences, however, it would not be until the early 1980s that they heard the name Rick James.
1981 saw the release of James’ defining single ‘Super Freak’, which was vital in bringing the underground sounds of funk and disco into the musical mainstream. Inevitably, this track also made James a household name across the States and further afield, too, bringing with it the success, fame, and riches that the musician had always desired. However, the success that ‘Super Freak’ brought also gave way to the ugly side of James’ personality.
For example, the singer’s drug use increased tenfold during the 1980s, with cocaine and methamphetamine being particular favourites. In fact, James was hospitalised in 1984 after being found unconscious as a result of a drug binge. This destructive lifestyle bled over from James’ personal life into his music career, which began to wane as the 1980s went on. Were it not for the fact that M.C. Hammer used a sample of ‘Super Freak’ in his colossal 1991 hit ‘U Can’t Touch This’, James’ musical career might have come to an abrupt end.
Throughout James’ rise to success and his gradual decline, the musician was heavily reliant on drugs day-to-day. By his own admission, James would regularly spend around $7,000 per week on drugs, which brought with them a whole host of medical problems.
However, drugs were not the only problem James faced during his career. In 1991, along with his girlfriend Tanya Hijazi – who was 17 when James first met her – he kidnapped, tortured, and sexually assaulted a 24-year-old woman during a cocaine binge.
On top of that horrific crime, James was also charged with kidnapping and beating the music industry executive Mary Sauger while out on bail for his previous stint of abduction and torture. There were multiple other claims of sexual assault, rape, and paedophilia levelled against James over the years, although many of these allegations were dropped due to a lack of evidence.
The life of Rick James is often described as “tragic”, and it is easy to see why. It must be said, however, that his reliance on drugs and alcohol should not, and can not, excuse the multiple cases of sexual assault and rape that the funk pioneer brought over the years.
If ‘Super Freak’ represented the peak of Rick James’ career, then his decline was astonishingly sharp. Not only did the Buffalo-born songwriter fail to follow up on the success of the song, he fell deeper into his drug addiction, endangering those around him and committing a slew of heinous crimes in the process. The songwriter eventually died in 2004, with the official cause of death given as a heart attack, although an autopsy found that James’ blood contained a cocktail of nine different drugs, including both cocaine and meth.
