Two years in California's Folsom Prison gave Rick James time to ponder how his hedonistic lifestyle and longtime crack cocaine addiction caused his fall from funk superstar.
James, who rose to fame in the late 1970s and early '80s with songs like Mary Jane, Give It to Me Baby and Super Freak, was sentenced in 1994 to five years in prison for assaulting one woman and supplying drugs to another.
Paroled last year, he's rekindling his career, touring with his old Stone City Band and releasing Urban Rhapsody, his first album in nine years. He has kicked his habit and his old ways, he says, and wants to concentrate on family and his music.
"When I was in prison, I wrote like 300 songs," says James, 45. "I was just laying my heart and soul out and really reflecting on my life and how I ended up in this position."
But once he was released and started listening to what he'd written, he thought some of the tunes were too heavy.
He didn't want to do something that would have people saying, "Poor Rick." "I decided to write songs that really depicted what was going on in my life, but I kept it upbeat."
The album is James' first since 1988's Wonderful. He hasn't toured in nearly 10 years. Last time he stayed out only about a month before quitting.
"I was more interested in drugs at the time. This (the new tour) feels the way it did when I first started. I have the same butterflies and emotions."
On the album, James talks about his own ups and downs and is joined by the Stone City Band, JoJo of the Mary Jane Girls, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Bobby Womack and Charlie Wilson.
It's a thumping '90s update of James' signature sound.
"Lyrically, I'm writing better than I ever did in prison, and I'm singing better than I ever did because my lungs and my brain are not clouded with dope," he says. "There is a clarity, power and strength I can feel."
Rhapsody is the first release on Private I Records, a Mercury-distributed partnership with veteran promoter Joe Isgro. The Private I deal gives James ownership of his masters and publishing rights for the first time in his career, he says.
The timing for a James album certainly seems right. He's on two recently released film soundtracks (Money Talks and How to Be a Player). His music continues to be sampled by rappers. And his classic hits, including the soul-wrenching Fire and Desire with Teena Marie, are frequently heard on radio.
"That means something to me," says James, who, before realizing how lucrative it could be, didn't want rappers sampling his music.
"To see kids 16 years old saying they listen to Rick James or Teena Marie or the Mary Jane Girls really touches me," James says. "They are very aware of who George Clinton and Rick James are and where these guys (rappers) are getting their samples from.
"They're comparing us to all of the hip-hop and new jack groups, and finding that these 40- and 50-year-old dudes are singing just as hard and playing just as good as they did in the '70s and '80s."
But James says he wants kids to get something from his album aside from the music - the message that drug abuse ruins lives. He says he plans to speak at high schools while he's on tour.
"I've wasted a lot of time doing drugs and wasted a lot of my life being self-indulgent with bull-- - - - ," he says. "I want to talk to kids about the evil of crack abuse and the goodness of staying in school and the results one can get without doing drugs. I never wanted to be a role model, but somebody has to tell them. It was a revelation I had in prison."
Reprinted WITH permission from USA TODAY
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