Released July 10, 1981 Recorded 1981 Label Gordy | Format 7" vinyl Genre Funk | |
Length 3:24 (Album/7" version)
7:05 (12" version) | ||
"Super Freak" is a 1981 single produced and performed by Rick James. The song, co-written by James and Alonzo Miller, was first released on James' album Street Songs and became one of James' signature songs. It features background vocals from Motown labelmates The Temptations—in which the bass singer is James' uncle Melvin Franklin—and Canadian singer Taborah Johnson. "Freak" is a slang term for a very promiscuous girl, as described in the song's lyrics, "...a very kinky girl / The kind you don't take home to mother". Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song #477 in its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Nine years later, MC Hammer's 1990 hit "U Can't Touch This" sampled it. The song was nominated for the Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance at the 1982 Grammys.
Chart performance
The song was a big hit for James in 1981, charting on the pop, R&B and dance charts in the US. On the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the song peaked at no. 16 in the fall of 1981 and spent 10 weeks in the top 40. Together with two other singles from Street Songs, "Give It to Me Baby" and "Ghetto Life", it spent three weeks at no. 1 on the American dance charts earlier that year.