Rick James: Self
Quotes
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Rick James : Never mind what you thought I was. I'm Rick James, bitch!
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
