And I’ve shot up Puerto Rico and drank up Mexico. “I’ve smoked half of Paris and most of Russia. “I could have brought Monte Carlo as much as I’ve snorted,” said James.
A few weeks before his spirit ascended (or descended, depending on whom you ask), James told me just how out of control it got in an interview for King magazine. He disrupted the music business’ racial hierarchy, selling out multiple nights at 20,000-seat venues such as The Forum in Los Angeles and Madison Square Garden in New York, a rarity for a hardcore R&B act at that time.īut just months after his unlikely comeback in 2004, James died of heart failure at 56, the result of decades of hard living.
He co-signed and produced blue-eyed soul talent Teena Marie, and her popularity in the ‘hood propelled her to two gold albums: It Must Be Magic in 1981 and Starchild in 1984. The album’s success and its timing put James temporarily in the same company as the label’s immortals: Smokey Robinson, The Supremes, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and The Jackson 5.īut James had even more ambitious plans. His 1981 Street Songs went triple platinum at a time when the music business was struggling to move units. In Bitchin’: The Sound and Fury of Rick James, director Sacha Jenkins made it a point to add substance to James’ hedonistic image.īorn James Johnson Jr., the Buffalo, New York, native was raised by a single mother who ran numbers for the Italian mob, and grew up to become the biggest star at Motown Records for a time. An out-of-control James sucker-punched Murphy, following up with his now-famous catchphrase: “I’m Rick James, b-!” In the skit, the real James offered a deadpan summation for his reckless behavior: “Cocaine is a hell of a drug.” With James, it’s easy to get lost in the fog of the off-the-rails antics famously memorialized by his riotous appearance on the Chappelle’s Show skit Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories.Ĭomedian-actor Eddie Murphy’s older brother recounted a wild night on the town in the mid-’80s with the drug-fueled performer - hilariously played by Chappelle wearing both a wig mirroring James’ trademark African braids and his towering boots. Several outlets, including The Undefeated, exaggerated Kerry’s recounting of the anecdote in the doc, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in mid-June and premieres on Showtime on Sept. I’ve gotten a lot of phone calls about that one.” “But he didn’t whip out his privates in anyone’s face. At the time, Kerry Gordy was an executive at the label’s artists and repertoire department and later managed James. “Rick was Rick,” said Gordy, whose father is Motown Records founder Berry Gordy.
“Sell my god damn album!” he screamed, leaving behind a copy of his next release. James reportedly snorted cocaine off a table, jumped on the label head’s desk, and shoved his crotch in the executive’s face.
In the new documentary Bitchin’: The Sound and Fury of Rick James, the late funk god’s longtime manager tells a story of how James, incensed by sluggish sales of his 1982 album Throwin’ Down, barged into the offices of Motown president Jay Lasker and, um, forcefully demanded action. Kerry Gordy wants to set the record straight about his friend and former client, who also happens to be one of music’s most habitual line-stepping hellraisers.