Super Freak

“Super Freak” was not supposed to be the centerpiece of Street Songs. Rick James had finished the rest of the album at the Record Plant in Sausalito, California when he wrote it almost as an afterthought. He improvised the lyrics over a funk instrumental with The Temptations on backing vocals. Alonzo Miller, a Los Angeles DJ, cleaned up the improvisations and received co-writing credit. The bass was played by Oscar Alston. James later said he wanted something silly with a new wave texture, something he described in Ebony as what “white folks could dance to.” What he put together in an afternoon became one of the most recognized bass lines in popular music.

The single reached number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number three on the R&B chart. It went to number one on the dance chart for three weeks. Rolling Stone ranked it number 153 in their 500 Greatest Songs list in 2021. James was nominated for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance at the 1982 Grammys. He did not win that night. In 1990 MC Hammer sampled the bass line for “U Can’t Touch This” and the sample became its own cultural moment. James received songwriting credit and the royalties that came with it. In 1991 the song earned him his only Grammy, awarded for Best R&B Song as the song’s composer. The thing he almost left off the album gave him the only Grammy he ever won.

Rick James was born James Ambrose Johnson Jr. in Buffalo, New York on February 1, 1948. He spent the 1970s building a catalog at Motown, writing for other artists and releasing gold and platinum records of his own. Street Songs was his fifth album. It sold three million copies and made him a star on his own terms. Twenty-two years ago today he was found dead at his home in Los Angeles. He was 56. The Chappelle Show had made him famous to a new generation earlier that same year. He left behind a catalog that keeps moving and a bass line that never stopped.