- Rick James: What happened was some white boys started fighting with me. So, here I am thinkin' that white people are cool in Canada and now I'm going to get into this fight. And some guys came to my defense and beat these guys up. I was a little guy. I was a little skinny kid. But, the guys that beat these guys up were in a band called: The Hawks. Later, it turned out, they'd be - they'd call themselves: The Band. Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, and played behind Bob Dylan. And they kind of rescued me and they kind of took me under their wing.
- Rick James: I was sittin' around a restaurant, this friend of mine was sayin', "You're running away from the service, you gotta have another name." And this girl was a singer in Canada. Her name was Shirley Mathews. She says, "Well, I got a cousin named Rickie Mathews. So, why don't you call yourself Rickie Mathews. " So, I said Rickie, and I put my middle name James, Mathews. So, it was Rickie James Mathews. And that's when I had the band with Neil Young.
- Rick James: I used to have these dreams. I just knew that it was gonna happen, you know. And I used to see - my mother, consequently, would take me to see a psychiatrist. And the psychiatrist would tell her, "Hey, he's real normal. He's above normal. He has a super high intelligence. But, the boy just wants to be a star."
- Conway the Machine: He was just one of them dudes that you didn't want to fuck with, you didn't want to mess with. He was known for definitely everything. you hear in his music. You know what I'm sayin'? Songs like "Ghetto Life", you know, and that shit like that. That's Rick James, man, in a nutshell. Like, you know what I'm sayin'? Come up from where we from, we all like that.
- Rick James: Some people say its hard to imagine Neil Young and Rick James together. But, really, when you think about it, it's not. Because I was singing in those days. And I really wasn't playing guitar or anything. I was playing a little harmonica. Neil was into melodic chords, real pretty kind of chords, you know. And I would write kind of R&B lyrics over these chords. So, really it was very interesting combination.
- Rickman Mason: [referring to Rick James interracial Canadian band in the 60s: "The Mynah Birds"] Being signed to Motown, that was fabulous - especially white people too. They just accepted us like whammo. And we were in there recording. It was a whirlwind actually; because, all I remember being 24/7 in the studio. Actually Rick disappeared out of the studio somewhere, passed out in the steps, and they found him an hour later. We had the Supremes come in and back us up and Stevie Wonder jump in and play a little keyboard. It was a great time.
- Big Daddy Kane: I remember listening to Rick James music when I was a kid. "Bustin' Out" was probably one of my favorites. Heavy bass line, driven grooves, and Rick was just wilding on the song - spitin' it raw.
- Ice Cube: [talking about "Mary Jane'] When I was young, I thought it was a song talkin' about a pretty girl that he loved. Ace taught me no. He talkin' about: weed. And I'm like, I'll be damned. This man is a genius.
- Bootsy Collins: Funk was a bad word - until we made it famous. Funk is like just the way you feelin'. I mean whatever you feelin' - is funk. We came out of the A-hole in between the P-hole. So, if you come from there, then you funky anyway.
- Big Daddy Kane: Rick James style of funk wasn't like the Gap Band, Con Funk Shun, Ohio Players. His style was just hard.
- Oscar Alston: Rick could write. He wasn't a great pianist or a great bass. But, he knew what he liked and what would work and fit together. So, when he had all of us around, that's like having all of the notes on the piano, all of the notes on the bass.
- Val Young: They would tell us at sound check, you cannot smoke. Rick said, "We're smokin' anyway." So, on stage, he would light it up and he would tell the audience, "If the police bother me, you all tear this mothersucker up."
- Bootsy Collins: Rick was the smartest one out of all of us. She sold a lot of records. People came to the concerts. And, you know, he used to talk about it, "Yeah, I'm sellin' more records than y'all." I think George took offense, a little bit. But, all was fair in funk and war, man.
- Rick James: Most of us are coming from Buffalo. And we moved to LA. We were livin' in Randolph Hearst mansion. I mean, we were like livin' big time. I brought all my guys out, homeboys from the ghetto.
- Rick James: "Street Songs" spoke of things that happened in the ghetto. It talks about very real subjects and very real things. You know, black people made me. Black people bought tickets and sold out concerts and stadiums. So, it was a conscious attempt in my part to get back to the roots in what I'm all about.
- Levi Ruffin Jr.: We didn't get shit from Rick. The idea was, "I would get you guys" You know, very charismatically sayin', "I'm gonna pay you guys off, man. You've been beautiful. You've been wonderful - and all this shit. Man, where's the money? Fuck the fame, I want the fortune, bro.
- Rick James: When I hit the stage, he's called Rick James. And that character symbolizes everything that stands for freedom, sex, love, power, truth. I couldn't be the same person off the stage. If I was that way off the stage, I'd be nuts by now.
- Conway the Machine: Buffalo to me is one of the most racially segregated cities in the country. It's split up in sections, you know what I'm sayin'. There's the east side, the shit, the ghetto, you see the school. You saw how the shit look. It's more black... you know what I'm sayin'. And black families tryin' to figure it out. The bottom, I call it. You got the west side is more like, you know, Hispanic, like Latinos and shit. You know what I mean? Your Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and shit like that. But, it's also still more cultural too, because you got your Middle Easterns and, you know, you got some people, you know you got people from all over, really on the west side. You know what I'm sayin'? Then, you got south Buffalo. That's like your poor whites. And, then, north Buffalo is there, you know, there's nice houses, there's nice, you know, everybody is doin' well. Well off, so to speak, over there. Me personally, I stay on the east, where I belong. You know what I mean?
- Rick James: To me, my attitude about it, it was long time coming. I was a superstar in my head already - I mean, although I wasn't financially. My ego at that time was like: yeah, it's about time.
- Rick James: You know, they got these houses, you know, and all these gold albums and stuff. And Buffalo Springfield are doing well and here I am feeling like shit, you know. I'm sayin', like, why don't I have any of this? What's wrong with me?
- Rick James: When you're really confused, you go home to your mother. I said, "Mom, I'm tired. I haven't been home in like 8 or 9 years. Nothing's happening." Being home with her and listening to the music going around. I was in the ghetto, so, I was listening to a lot of black music and I was hearing the Parliament Funkadelics and Bootsy and all that kind of stuff. And I started saying, "Well, this is kinda like my concept: rock and funk. But, not the way I would do it." I want to be nasty. I want to be rare. And if I hit a bad chord or a bad note, on my record, and it made sense, I'd keep it. If I hit a bad note vocally and if it had the magic, I'd keep it.
- Levi Ruffin Jr.: He named it Punk Funk. Rick wanted to be rocker. And then he came to Buffalo and, you know, we have a different kind of style... you doin' jazz, doin' hard rock with guitars, you doin' big band music with the horns. The punk part was punk from like Europe. He was equating the poor kids over there with poor kids here in the neighborhoods in Buffalo. Punk Funk was the attitude. We gonna do what the hell we wanna do.
- Rick James: I had like this short afro, you know, and I didn't want that. You know, I didn't want to look like everybody else. And the Beatles had made such a tremendous affect on me - with the Beatle haircut. So, I ran into this African woman on an airplane. She was from the Masai. And I saw her hair. I said, "God, that's fantastic! How do you do that?" And she showed me these books of Africans with their short hair and then she showed me some pictures after they finished doing what they did their magic. I said, "Can you do this for me?" She said, "Yeah." And I said, "There it is. Bam! That's the vision. That's what I want."
- Tanya Hijazi: His sexual exploits were more: you do that to that person, let me watch. I want to orchestrate some shit over here. He wasn't personally involved. He was not that kind of "super freak." He didn't let people touch him. He wasn't like *in* the orgy. He would watch the orgy. It was not a personal thing for him. If he was gonna be sexual, it was with somebody he trusted and he trusted no one.
- Rick James: I was very vocal because I'm a very vocal about injustice. I've never been one to bite my tongue. I never will. If I see somethin' funky that's goin' on, I'm gonna speak on it.
- Rick James: Ever since I had established myself, I had a concept for some girl singers. Cause I knew I could write for girls, you know. Its easy for me to write for them, you know. I've been such a asshole to them, that, you know, I can kind of reverse and know how they feel, you know.
- Ty James: At times, when he would try to be a father, it would be more so, like, "I'm gonna go out. I'm gonna hang out. I'm gonna go party. But, when I get back, you better still stay in your room, like, don't come out the rest of the night." Like, I'm like, "Oh my God." And like I would almost be scared to see what was takin' place outside the doors. Walking over naked girls at 7AM in the morning was normal to me. I'm like, "Oh, excuse me."
- [laughs]
- Levi Ruffin Jr.: Bein' in a rock-n-roll band is not a lot of free time. Rock-n-roll is hard. Goin' at it hard. That's it, funk. You got to hit hard. Hit it like you're fightin'. That's what he did.
- Levi Ruffin Jr.: One day I had him cryin'. I was mad at him, man. I went to him, "That white bitch got you" - that's what we called cocaine - "That white bitch got you fucked up, man." And he was sayin', "But, man, I just can't stop." I said, "Goddammit, you're weak! You're a weak motherfucker., man. You can't doin' this shit. It's gonna kill you."
- Levi Ruffin Jr.: I left before all that shit started to get really outta pocket. It got to a point where Rick was Rick now. There was no more James Johnson, Jr. That dude gone.
- Oscar Alston: Rick was the only one that really allowed that drug to take over and change who you really are. And over time, as primary band members saw that, they began to peel off.
- Roxanne Shanté: I was on a label on Warner Brothers. They were like, okay, look, you need to go and stay with Rick for a little while and you guys are gonna go on and work on a single together. And I'm straight out the group home, I already have a baby, and spending so much time on the tour. I didn't even have a home address. So, I go to Rick James house and stay. A lady was also stayin' there and I take it that she was Rick's wife, girlfriend, live-in girlfriend, whatever. And, its so sad because I was thinking about this recently. Like, never knew her name and I was there for almost three months. Cause, he called her: bitch. "Bitch, get something from the store." "Bitch, go get me something to eat." "Bitch, such-n-such." And, you know, she just "Okay. Okay, Rick. Okay." You know and I knew I ain't wanna be that bitch.
- JoJo McDuffie: I started seeing him as a person who had an addiction. When someone has an addiction, you're not rational. You're not thinking rationally.
- Ty James: Daddy had numerous girls. There was always somebody flyin' in and out. You know, we go to the local pizza shop and girls would be comin' back. I remember Tanya coming to the house for the first time. She was 17. She was the same age as me. He comes in the house, there comin' in from the airport, and I pulled him to the side, "How old is she?" "She's 21!" I'm like, hmm, okay.
- Rick James: They ended up giving me five years, four months. That's when I went to Fulsom Prison. It was a serious, strange transition. As much as I thought is was a curse, some terrible thing, it turned out to be a beautiful blessing. I'm thankful to God let me have prison as an alternative, as opposed to the grave. Because I was headed to the grave.
- Rick James: She said I forced her to have sex. I never forced her to have sex. I never forced a woman in my life to have sex. If anything, I got to force them not to have sex.
- Rick James: You don't force anyone to do crack. You don't force them. People that I know that smoke crack, they'll go out and sell their babies for a hit of crack.
- Tanya Hijazi: From the bottom to the top, from the top to the bottom, he could relate to everybody; because, he had been in every shoe. Musically, there weren't many that could touch him. He was a real - motherfucker.
- Norwood Fisher: Funk is the modern interpretation of our ancestors screaming through us - from Africa, through the pain of slavery, through Jim Crow. It's black excellence and its nigger shit. The worst made beautiful. The lowest given the opportunity to express. Rick James - he is an amazing expression of all of that.