“Superfreak” by Rick James

Rick James wrote "Super Freak" with Alonzo Miller, produced it himself and parked it on Street Songs, his fifth album, and Motown sent it out as a single in the summer of 1981, right behind "Give It to Me Baby". It's a leering, strutting slab of funk about a woman who is up for anything, a freak in the slang sense of someone sexually adventurous, and James sells every innuendo like a man who invented them.

It became one of his signature songs, and the Grammys nominated it for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance in 1982. Rolling Stone put it on its 500 greatest songs list in 2004 and 2010, then moved it up to 153 in 2021, and the samplers never stopped circling: MC Hammer took a piece in 1990, then Jay-Z in 2006, then Nicki Minaj in 2022.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.