Flamboyant funk music pioneer Rick James, a dynamic performer whose sensuous 1981 dance hit "Super Freak" came to embody the ruinous excesses of his colourful life, has died in his sleep of natural causes. He was 56.

James died at 9:20 a.m. on Friday in his home near Hollywood, a record label spokeswoman said.

The self-proclaimed "icon of drug use and eroticism," James paid the price for his longtime addiction to crack-cocaine in the early 1990s when he served three years in prison for assault and false imprisonment.

He had been in fragile health since suffering a stroke in 1998 after popping a blood vessel at a concert in Denver. But he was in upbeat spirits as recently as late June when he received a lifetime achievement award at a music industry dinner in Beverly Hills.

"I'm Rick James, bitch," he defiantly proclaimed at the black-tie event. The multi-instrumentalist had just finished recording an album that he planned to release next year, and was in talks with Hollywood studios for a movie about his life.
James is perhaps best known for his smash "Super Freak", in which he sings of a "very kinky girl, the kind you don't take home to mother."

The song peaked at No. 16 on the U.S. pop charts, and found renewed life a decade later when rapper MC Hammer sampled it on "U Can't Touch This", one of the biggest rap records of all time.

His grooves and hooks also ended up on tracks by such artists as Mary J. Blige, Ashanti, LL Cool J and Will Smith, introducing him to a new generation of fans. He also collaborated with the Temptations and Smokey Robinson.

James, born James Johnson Jr in Buffalo, New York, started writing songs when he was 11. He joined the U.S. Navy when he was 15, but deserted and went to Canada, where he formed a rock band called the Mynah Birds, featuring Neil Young. James eventually surrendered and was sent to the brig.

He wrote and performed with little success until 1978 when his debut album "Come Get It!" sold 2 million copies, and yielded the singles "You and I", which topped the R&B charts, and "Mary Jane", which went to No. 3.

His stage image -- outlandish hair braids, extravagant costumes and spiky guitars -- prompted comparisons with funk artists like Sly and the Family Stone and George Clinton's Parliament-Funkadelic.

"It was the best time of my life," James told Reuters in 2003. "We were doing groundbreaking tours, and a lot of drugs and drank a lot ... It's hard to reflect and remember those times. They are very vague to me -- a lot of it is a haze."

Indeed, he became a hooked on crack and began a long descent into disgrace. In 1993, he was sentenced to five years in prison (serving three) for assault and false imprisonment stemming from two grisly incidents.

In 1991, James and his then 21-year-old girlfriend, Tania Hijazi, beat up and tortured a masseuse. The woman was tied naked to a chair, burned with a hot knife and a lighter and forced to perform oral sex on Hijazi.

In 1992, the couple beat up and held captive a female record label executive in a hotel on the Sunset Strip. James and Hijazi, who also went to prison, married upon his release in 1997.

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