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BY MARGENA A. OHRISTIAN

lames!" had
who really
U to anyone

wasn't c
%
fifth album,

walltoowell:

ghettoes,p>mps,hoes

gjP

Ind love. Freaks werentn^>ah

But one day m

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

suggested James

of his Stone C> V ^

record the melody. ^ ^

wanted to have
ite folks could dance

^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^,,

'
^ ,he album

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He ealled me after the Chappelle thing. He loved it,

I told him that was the funniest erap I'd ever seen.

[Th!

hirtv years later, people still uniN'ersally embrace that song with its thumping bass line.
Street Sons crossed over musically and
catapulted James to stardom. The album also
featured the sultry'ballad, "Fire and Desire,

were -pe,n,

"Rick had two sides to his

Dersonality....AlotoFthat

a duet with his protegee, Teena Marie, who dated James tor a

between us. We broke up the first

were

ine drug oF the moment.

-DANIEL LEMELLE

different states. [Back then,] that was amazing for

;toutgross t L Ro...ng Stones. We were doing
^^s doing more than outgrossing top-selling
e was also doing drugs. He never halt-stepped
a^hing, so his appetite tor destructio
sen^
"Rick had two sides to his ?^^''^'^''^^^TJ
whose tenor sax solo James calls out with "Blow,
" . ^ r Freak " "One. minute he was the nicest person on the
L e t an angel. Then the next minute, he was Lue.ter! ... A
S h a : ; : L o with the prevailingdrugofU^emom.^
Art seemed to be imitating life for James, and lethal mixes of
dru , orgies and kinky sex would uldmate.y be his c W a L
By ?994 he had an alternate identitv-pnsoner J29237-in

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,AMES SWIMMING AT AGE ^ 4 . J J " ^ " S'BLINGS ON EASTER

SUNDAY AT AGE 10 (BACK ROW. RIGHT).

)ames
goingtogiveusawhuppmg
f
f.y who worked as h,s brother's " -

"We didn't
dossed like

st We would party together,

p u t ] before he died, he had his business
^ ; ^
counts, "He left everything to me and my brothers. He m.ght
have partied, but he would handle his busn.ess.

have a good time w,th h.m,

lames tr.ed marr.age, tymg the k - ^ ' ^ J
while in Canada, In h,s memo.r. The Confisno

^^.^
,^, ;
/

^^

BASKETBALL PLAYER, HE

"Party All the Time "

FEBRUARY 2011

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97

u wasn't easy to fathom that "Super Freak" wotdd earn

James millions of dollars, both when he was al.e and po t^u.
mously He dropped out of high school at 15, but he educated

r S f b o u t tSe music business, becoming astute enough to

be one ofthe few performers to own his work.
A highly publicized copyright-mfnngen.ent su.t vv.s fi d

"Before he died, he had

his business in order....
He might have partied,
but he would handle his
business,

^^Y^^ZAAMES-MATTHE

mer's hit won for Best R&B Song.

The "Super Freak" video would become the eatahst for
, Z landmark battle against MTV. Then only a tew mon.h
old the cable television network's rock-dommated forn^t e
uded African-American videos, which, James chargc-d, was
i a n t racsm." M.ehael laekson has been credited as the man
whose "BUlie Jean" v.deo-which also didn't ^t the ^
J . mula-helped to tear down the color barrier at MI V n 1983
but from 1981 until 1983, Rick James single-handedly raised
hell and fought the network by himself.
'aick could go head to head with anybody," says Johnson.

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"You just really didn't want to think that you had a fool on your
hi ds' l e n V.U went against him. He could handle hin.self
..ainst anybody, I don't eare who you thought you were.
TmesvoicedVis disappointment that other B.ackperforn,ers
didn't support his efforts. "I'm a ^--^\^'^'^^l'^^^^
bu
once said. "All these Black artists ckum they re behmd m , but
when it's time to make a public statement, you can t find^h m^
. They're going to let me do all the rapping and get into
trouble and then they'll reap the benefits "
Durin. an appearance on ABC's NiIMne, James called
MTV eo founder Bob Pittman, on the carpet. His words were
harsh but James was w.lling to handle the consequences of his
a l n s if it meant more exposure and sales, not just for himself,
but for all Blaek artists.
In 2006, another MTV co-fbunder. Les Garland, said th t
"Super Freak" was not aired because "Its content was a h tie
oter the top for us, and our standards and practices wou dn
go for it because ofthe visuals. It had nothing to do with the
song. It had nothing to do with hmi"
. T K .-was
"We kicked that d<,or open," Johnson uis.sts. The e was
nobodv saying a word. All the Black [artists] are on there h^o
but nobody realizes that the whole [reason] is because o f . hat
Rick did MTV never plaxed Rick's videos as a result.
Ironically, the first video plaved on MTV to feature James
was Eddie Murphy's "Party All the Time "
The "racial erap" going on in roek mus.c was nothing new. It
was all too familiar to James. His roots rested there.

As a teenager, using the name Ricky James Matthews, )a,

fronted a Canadian R&B group called the Mynah Birds^ They
' : e Canada's answer to the Beatles and Matured t e n - o b s e u ^
musicians sueh as Neil Young (of Buffalo Springfield and Cros

^XES WITH SIBLINGS LEROl, CHERYL,

CARMEN AND THEIR MOTHER, MABEL GLADDEN.

Stills, Nash and

Young), Goldy Mcjohn (of Steppenwolf)

thy, or an enlarged heart.

anted to make it bad
bad.
wanted
Motown success was short In ed be

Ate rving hi, ,ime In .he b * for d e . " .

of decadence continued to catch.IP with

phvsicallv. After years ot whipping his nc.k

forth, in 1998 James suffered a stroke when
vessel in his neck ruptured during a concer
ver. He . . u l d later undergo h i p ^ ^ ^
and have a pacemaker inserted

The one that featured "Super Freak.

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