| "Super Freak" | ||||||||||
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| Single by Rick James | ||||||||||
| from the album Street Songs | ||||||||||
| Released | November 5, 1981 | |||||||||
| Recorded | 1981 | |||||||||
| Genre | Soul, funk | |||||||||
| Length | 3:24 (album version) 7:05 (12" version) |
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| Label | Gordy | |||||||||
| Writer(s) | Rick James, Alonzo Miller | |||||||||
| Producer | Rick James | |||||||||
| Rick James singles chronology | ||||||||||
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"Super Freak" is a 1981 hit 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, 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.
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The song was a big hit for James in 1981, charting on the pop, R&B and dance charts in the U.S. On the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the song peaked at #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 #1 on the American dance charts earlier that year.
| Preceded by "Try It Out" / "Hold Tight" by Gino Soccio |
Billboard Hot Dance Club Play number-one single (with "Give It to Me Baby" and "Ghetto Life") July 25, 1981 - August 8, 1981 |
Succeeded by "I'm in Love" by Evelyn King |