All language subtitles for Mike.Judge.Presents.Tales.From.The.Tour.Bus.S02E03.WEBRip.x264-eSc

Welcome back to the
story of maybe the most

maligned artist in the
history of Motown,

and I realize that's saying something.

It's easy to forget that in the heady

days of REO Speedwagon and Pink Floyd,

the King of Punk-Funk, Rick James,

was one of the biggest selling
musical acts of the day.

His biggest song, "Super Freak,"
started out as a kind of

chauvinistic brag
about his charmed life,

and ended up symbolizing
his fall from grace.

Now, it's fair to say more people may
know Rick through his appearance

on the Chappelle Show
than through his music,

and that's a shame.

But then again,

cocaine is a hell of a drug.

But, we'll get to that.

We pick up the story
where we left off,

with Rick and his band
on the mountaintop,

preparing for that long and
treacherous trek back down to Earth.

We were bigger than life.

They were just, uh... crazy, man.

A little scary, too.

I remember that distinctly.

Nate Guido
Hughes, his brother, Lanise,

and bandleader Levi Ruffin

came out of obscurity in Buffalo, NY

to reach the epitome
of funk fame with Rick James.

The cops wanted to arrest Rick
as soon as he came out on stage.

That happened everywhere,
all the time.

It was so jam packed in Atlanta,

there would have been a riot if they
even attempted to snatch him up

So, they figured they'll wait
'til after the show

to get him.

Rick always left the stage
towards the end of the show.

But that night, he wasn't
coming back out.

He went and changed,
put on some overalls,

and put his braids in
a Rastafarian hat,

and he walked out of the building.

He was gone.

His valet put on his boots,

his cape, and came out dancing
with his back to the audience.

We were on stage cracking up.

And the cops was on the side, ready to

pounce on Rick as soon
as he left the stage.

After they beat the hell out of him,

they found out it was his valet,

and not Rick.

Dumbasses.

Oh, they hated us.

They fucked him up, man.
I told the guy,

"You must really love your boss
for you to pull this shit."

One unit of law enforcement
came to love Rick James,

according to Levi, some of the
local police back in Buffalo.

At the height of his fame, Rick moved

out of his Beverly Hills mansion,

and moved his whole band back home.

You know, there'd be a
lot of women at the

house, uh, drop in girls at any time.

And I guess the cops
had heard about us,

so they'd come up to the house,
knock on the door...

but, you know, they're plain
clothes and they'd come in,

like, they gotta flash their badge.

And, uh, they'd come over to
the bar we had upstairs there,

and they-they would
bring all the drugs

they took out the fucking lockers,

the best evidence cocaine
the world's ever seen

because they wanted
to be with the girls.

And, uh, I kinda understood
that, it was like a whorehouse.

Well, it was a
30,000 square-foot ranch,

with 28 bedrooms, a stable of
Arabian horses, and 10 jet skis.

So... kind of like a whorehouse.

But that shit got old real quick, man.

Because the cops start telling
us all these... oh my, God,

truthful things about what
they would do to "suspects."

"Man, Levi, you shoulda
fuckin' been there.

We beat this fucker, man, 'til
he called out for his moms."

I'm sittin' there lookin'... I mean,
that shit ain't funny to me.

Jesus Christ, man.

These are the police,

with the best drugs that they're, like

I said, the world has ever known.

But, you know...

they loved coming
to Rick James' house.

By the time Rick and the
Stone City Band had made friends

with the cops in Buffalo,
they had found a new nemesis.

A rival who would push Rick
James for the rest of his life.

The artist known simply as Prince.

Rick was the one that chose him to
come out and open up on his tour,

because he was released from
the Rolling Stones tour,

because they didn't care for
him that much.

Rick came to the band and asked,
"What you think about Prince?"

Rick's thing was, when he was
coming out, there was no Prince.

Now, Prince had some records.

Prince was a little softer.

But that shit was funky,

and that shit was completely...

different.

Because a lot of white audiences
came out to see Prince.

And Rick was smart enough
to realize that, like "Mmm okay,

then we need to have this
little kid on tour with us."

This was his very first black tour.

Black audiences loved
Rick from the get-go.

Different from Prince.

The first time we met him,
it was in Dallas.

And, uh, we found out that he was
gonna be opening and whatnot.

And Rick said, "Here he comes"

And-and I'm lookin'.

And he comes in, and I'm-I'm still
fucking looking, where is he?

I'm thinkin' the cat's gotta
be, like, 5'9", maybe 6' tall.

And this little bitty son of a
bitch walks in there. I said,

"Goddamn, he's tiny!"

He was down here.

And he had on pink
high-heeled fucking shoes...

stunning.

That little dude, that's Prince.

You know, us being so tall,

I mean, he-he seems like a-a dwarf.

But he was so powerful
on stage, you know?

I liked the son of a bitch.

He was funky as hell to me.

But Rick used to get mad,
'cause I remember him saying,

"That little motherfucker
got me working hard."

'Cause he was a bad
little motherfucker, man.

He was funky.

Every show, Rick was on the
side of the stage, watching Prince.

Prince was on the side
of the stage, watching Rick.

They both understood where
this shit was about to go.

I think Prince, if he was in
this room, god bless his soul,

he would say it:

Prince would do his show,
then we'd do ours,

and nine times out of 10, when
we got finished with our show,

people forgot who the fuck
the opening act was.

We used to kick his little ass
every motherfuckin' night.

I mean, we're blowing up shit on
stage, pyrotechnics, and shit.

Bitches and whatnot.

We had ballerinas dancing and shit

for us, man. You can't do that.

- "Damn, who was opening up?"
- "Oh yeah, that was Prince."

They would forget when we
got through with that ass.

Prince would push
Rick to step up his game

in more ways than one.

Rick told me, when I became one
of the background singers.

That he was starting a female group.

Joanne McDuffie was
a part-time jazz singer

and part-time record store
clerk when she met Rick James

back in their hometown of Buffalo.

Female groups at the time, you
know, there weren't a lot of 'em.

The biggest thing that came
down the pipe at that point

was The Supremes.

Rick's idea was to create
a group of women

that were not wearing the same
dress, and the same gloves,

and the same wig, and the same shoes.

He said he wanted
to create a female group.

And I guess he put forth
that idea to Prince,

and Prince did it first.

Prince produced the
all-girl group, Vanity 6.

Rick, he was pretty pissed about that.

But anyway, I became lead singer

for the group that he produce,
the Mary Jane Girls.

Prince also started up another

band around one of his
childhood friends,

The Time, featuring Morris Day.

Rick answered with his own group,

Process and the Doo Rags.

Whatever Prince was
doing, we had to do better.

A lot of people don't realize that

motherfucker had Rick
working his ass off.

I remember that tour so well because
Rick was in control backstage.

He controlled everything in terms
of... there would be no hangers-on

that were not approved by Rick James.

Even with drugs, all of that
would have been controlled

and would have been doled out by Rick.

Jackie Rhinehart
was hired by Rick,

right before Prince joined
the tour, as the merch girl.

She designed and sold t-shirt,

and kept a close eye
on the King of Funk.

There's an after party
after every concert.

And so, he would take
at least a quarter of cocaine

and throw it up in the air,

like how now you see guys
pour out beer on the street,

or pour a 40 for my friend.

He would do that!

And just blow it in the air,
and he would say,

"To the boom gods."

I used to... and I
thought that was very funny.

But what was funnier, was to watch the

reaction of other people in the room.

Some people would get up... and
that's when Rick was watching

because why would you take possession
of something that's not yours.

That's really what he
was looking to see,

who was prone to be an addict,
or who actually may even steal,

because Rick's got it like that.

So... yeah.

The thing about Rick was, however you

treat him, you have to treat the band.

If you brought him an eight
ball of cocaine,

you better bring two eight
balls for the rest of the ban.

And if we're gonna sit here and
drink Jack Daniels all night long,

bring some for the band

'cause we're all gonna be
in the same room.

He even said that
to Don King, to his face.

"If we're gonna party,
we're partying together,

ain't gonna be no partying
without my band."

We all partied together.

Same thing at Studio 54.

The Super Freak was a VIP

at the most exclusive club
in the world

in its final days.

I loved 54.

That motherfucker was jumping.

Lots of drinks, man,

plenty of cocaine, we had
whatever the fuck we wanted, man.

We were all able to get into Studio

54 without cards, or without anything

because Rick made sure the people
in front knew who we were.

Go all the way up to the third floor,

and whatever you could
imagine was going on.

Men on men, women and
men, uh, everything

was happening on that third floor.

That was where all the fucking
and shit be going on.

People fucking together in
the eye, ear, and shit.

I mean, them fuckers up there,
freaking their asses off.

There was, like, a balcony and
with the sloping seats and shit,

and I would go up
there and just chill,

just sitting there
watching, like goddamn.

How the fuck you do that, you know?

I remember one night
in particular, uh, this one

woman had the nerve to come...
beautiful, beautiful

beautiful woman,
and she comes in there,

and she looks at me,
said, "I want the black one."

Me.

What?!

What's this, fuckin' slavery time
or some shit up in this bitch?

"I want you, I want the black one."

So, she's sitting in my fucking lap

and I'm saying, "This bitch got
a lot of motherfucking nerve."

So what I did was... it was
wrong of me to do this,

but I pulled my shit out,

put some cocaine on the tip of it,

and I told her, "Suck that."
And she did.

I mean, this woman's
one of the biggest

models in the history of modeling

doing this shit, I couldn't
believe it, man.

I mean, the bitch's got money
coming all out her ass,

and she's sitting here with this
black son of a bitch from Buffalo,

because I played synthesizer
and sang pretty good,

she wants to suck my dick.

Singers do get mostly ass,

but if you can play and sing,
you get more ass.

That's, uh, don't tell anybody
I said that, please.

While in New York,
Rick made a guest appearance

on "Saturday Night Live,"

and met another performer he
would produce in the studio.

Eddie Murphy.

Eddie Murphy has been
in Buffalo for almost a week.

Most of that time has
been spent inside

of Rick James' recording studio.

The pair have planned to produce
Murphy's first singing single.

The plans were helped
when the area was

hit with the worst
snowstorm of the year.

He got snowed in.

I think he missed, like, four gigs,

at $50,000 a whap.

Because he was snowed in Buffalo.

We just had fun down in the studio.

Telling jokes,
rippin' on each other, man.

He used to do this
character with Jheri Curls,

and, uh, Coming to America sh,
funniest shit.

Actually, he was
imitating Ric, and then...

Rick actually just
recorded him doing it.

The song became a hit.

Rick had that touch, man.

I mean, he just has that touch.

Rick's nemesis
also had that touch.

Prince has already made a party song

called "1999."

While The Super Freak was
living large with Eddie Murphy,

Prince was making a little move to go
along with his album, "Purple Rain."

This motherfucker...

I feel for-for Rick, uh, back then.

It got to him, man.

Prince put him, in some degree,

in despair, and I don't
think he handed it well.

Author David Ritz mined

The King of Funk for his inner
feelings between the binges.

Rick was jealous.

And I think Prince represented

to him the kind
of danger of getting old.

In 1985, Prince
gave his first ever

television interview to MTV,

the channel that was
revolutionizing the industry.

MTV refused to play Rick James.

I believe that all the back artists on
MTV should pull their videos off MTV.

If they were to play Rick
James without adding...

all the other videos about all the
other black artists on there,

I wouldn't want my videos on MTV

because I'm not gonna
be a token for nobody.

And right now, Michael Jackson,

Michael's bein' a token on MTV,

And so was Prince, who
probably doesn't even care.

But I'm not gonna be anybody's token.

'Cause the first thing I am is black.

The second thing I am is a person.

When I see something
as blatant as this...

I mean, I'm supposed to
sit by and say cool?

I think that stopped a lot of
our progress.

It stopped us from being considered

for Grammy's, you know,
all that stuff.

Despite taking Prince out
on tour, Rick James never quite

broke through like the purple one
when it came to white crowds.

We're in the South,
one of the Carolinas,

and Rick, and the band and our crew,
we all stayed in the same hotel.

We didn't believe in
staying in separate

hotels or hanging out separately.
So, anyway,

we're down in the bar, we're
having fun, we're drinkin'.

One of the patrons in
this bar lets off the n-word,

and he says it towards Rick.

Now, whether he was calling
Rick the n-word or not

is not the point. The
point is word came out

It's about to get
physical, and Rick grabs a

bottle, hits it against
the table to break it,

and it doesn't break...

There's a little pause,
it's like, okay,

my masculine shit just didn't happen.

Now what do we do?

And then suddenly,
it turns into a bar fight.

And there are chairs being thrown all

over the place, and it's... it's like,

oh, this is cool, this is a movie.

The, uh, concierge, he says, "Look,
I gotta call the magistrate."

The magistrate comes
about five minutes later,

the nicest good ol' boy on the planet.

He comes in, he says, "Guys,

"you need to leave.

"You need to check out the hotel,

"you need to get your whole
group together

and y'all need to go."

Rick's like, "No, man, no, no.
We're not even gonna ever

"be thrown out of a place.

It wasn't our fault."
"He said, "I understand that.

"I know the guy who started the fight.

"He's a knucklehead,

and I know he probably
just let the n-word

just fly 'cause that's what he does."

He said, "But, come here."

So we went outside.

The hotel was next to a bridge,

and the bridge was really long so
on the other side of the bridge,

you could see fire

and crosses, and they were about

to come across the bridge to us.

At that time,

there was a guy named Mario,

kind of martial artist.

He used to carry a suitcase,
and on the top of the suitcase,

when you opened it up,
it was two samurai swords.

He kept his eye on Rick and the band.

You know, at all times.

Wherever you went, he was there.

The magistrate said,
"You got probably two minutes

"to get out of here
'cause I can't stop this.

You need to go."

Now, we didn't carry weapons,
our security carried weapons.

But, Rick had security turn around,

get back on the bus.
We rounded up everybody,

and all you saw was buses

heading north.

All of his life,
the King of Punk-Funk

had been far more
of a lover than a fighter.

Women loved Rick.

That guy was a...

a magnet for chicks,
and he loved women, man...

Rick was, uh...

he was a swordsman. I think
that's why he had his own bus.

One night, we're on
the tour bus alone,

just me and Rick,

and he kisses me.

Oh, it was such a lovely kiss!

And then he says to me,

"Get off the bus!

"Leave right now!

"I don't want everybody
to ever think of you

as that kind of woman. Just leave."

And he would say this
in front of the guys,

you know,
"Jackie Rhinehart is a lady."

Over time, it was

his relationship with cocaine
that began to change.

Cocaine's a hell of a drug, man.

We swore we'd never let
that shit do that.

No drugs, no bitches...

none of that would
separate us, and, um...

it-it got to him, man.
And, uh... man...

it really got to him.

This one time, we went

to the Cow Palace

to see Sly Stone.

When we went into Sly's dressing room,

Sly was sitting off in the
corner and he was freebasing.

And it literally broke our hearts.

Because, for me, that's...

the legendary Sly Stone.

I know those records
backwards and forwards.

And here was the legend
of black music...

and you're sitting off in
a corner and you're freebasing,

and you have no idea
who the fuck's in the room...

'cause you're so busy with this...

glass dick in your mouth.

So, Rick turns to me, and says,

"We can never, ever, become that."

I remember calling him one
time, uh, a "weak motherfucker."

And he just said,
"Man, I just can't stop."

I said, "Man, you weak then.
You got that bitch got... "

bitch, we called it white bi...

"That white bitch
fucking you up, man."

"And I can't stop it."

Then I realized, later on in
life, man, he was-he was sick.

He couldn't... he couldn't stop, man.

There have been two occasions
where Rick technically OD'd.

And we're like, "Oh, God, he
can't die, this cannot happen"

He finally comes back,
he's halfway rational.

He agrees, finally,
that he's gonna check

into this center and seek some help

so he can get this shit under control.

We get all the cars.

We drive his ass from
Buffalo to Boston

check him into this rehab center.

Look at the place he's in.

It's all fine, it's wonderful,
it's great.

We leave, we drive back to Buffalo.

We didn't do our due diligence.

The bungalow next to Rick was
another super duper rockstar...

Steve Tyler.

And they got caught with cocaine...

wait a minute, I ain't talking
'bout a little bit of cocaine,

I'm talking one ounce of fucking blow.

This supposed to be
the rehab joint, bro.

God help you.

There was no rehab.
He was just partying.

While Prince was playing
stadiums across the globe,

Rick James played himself

performing in a parking lot
with Isaac Hayes

on an episode of The A-Team.

In 1990, his biggest hit would
return to the top of the charts,

but under a new name.

Well, none of us really knew anything

about this sampling
shit they were doing.

And Hammer talked to Rick about just

using a little small part of the song.

Man, he took the whole fucking
takes the whole line.

Rick was pissed.

"How can this dude take my song
and just blaspheme it,

"and do this to it and do that to it?

"And I think the song sucks

and blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah,"

until that first check came in.

When that first royalty check
hit Rick's pocket,

it was a completely
different ballgame,

because money talks.

Rick deserves that,
you know? The guy, uh...

he never got a Grammy, you know?

He didn't get his... The only Grammy

he got was from "Can't Touch This."

And I said, "Well,

if Hammer's gonna get a Grammy, they

should give one to
Rick." And they did.

Because, I said, "90% of that is that

do-do-do-doo, it has a little
infectious groove, you know."

That was "Super Freak."

His return to
glory was short-lived.

As "Can't Touch This" hit #1
in the charts,

Rick began dating
20 year-old Tanya Hijazi.

That seemed to be a...

beautiful relationship, you know?

It got crazy, because it was...

him and Tanya, and the pipe.

But, uh... it was beautiful.

It got ugly pretty quick.

In the summer of '91,
they were arrested

in Los Angles on charges
they imprisoned and tortured

another woman for several days with
the aforementioned hot crack pipe

while forcing their alleged
victim to perform sexual acts.

Let me just be thoughtful about
describing this... uh...

because he was tortured...
he expressed...

his torture, and so you're back
to the Marquis De Sade.

I mean, you've taken pleasure
as far as you can go,

and now, what you have
to play with is pain.

While out on bail, Rick
and Tanya were arrested again

on charges of assaulting
a music industry executive

for 20 hours straight in
a West Hollywood hotel room.

I-I don't... you need someone with

a deeper sense of poetic metaphors

than me to do this right,
but I'll try, man...

I think the pipe... made him crazy.

Rick spent two years
in Folsom State Prison

for assault and false imprisonment.

He was cleared of all torture charges,

which would have
put him away for life.

I get this call from prison,
and it's Rick on the phone.

I have to accept the call,
so I accept it.

And he said, "Dude, I just
need to talk to you."

I'm like, "I'm always here for you."

"But you haven't come to see me."

I said, "There's no way I'm
coming to see you behind bars.

I can't see my king behind
bars. I can't see that."

I can't see the person
that I admire the most

in prison because of something stupid.

That doesn't sit right
with me as a man.

It was like a kind of a,
uh, monastery for him.

And so, you get Rick the monk

reflecting on what he'd been doing
for the last, uh, 15 years.

But Rick the monk

leaves the monastery,
and returns to the world.

And the world is too much for him.

He gets out of prison, uh,
we-we have a big meeting, uh,

at this restaurant on Sunset.

And we actually put the band
back together, and it was good

until he started freebasing again.

But that's pretty much what happened.

I didn't want to talk
to his ass, personally.

You know, we finally get a chance
to talk, say, "Rick, how you doing?

"Man, I'm good, man"

"Man, you all right?
Man, you sound sick, man."

"No, man, holy shit,
I'm just a little tired"

"Okay, man, like, we're ready
to do this shit, man.

"You gonna get well, man?

That voice, come on, bro." He laughed.

"Ah, ah I'll be ready, man,
I'll be ready."

"Fuck man," I'm saying to myself.

We finally get off the
phone, and... I hope this

don't hurt nobody's
feelings out there but,

the guys said,
"Levi, did you hear that."

And I said, "Yeah, man, Rick's sick."

And, jokingly, we said we hope he...

he don't die before we get
through out doing this tour,

because he called us in August.

We're supposed to have rehearsals
the first week in September.

And he was gone.

He was fuckin' gone.

James Ambrose Johnson Jr.
was found dead

in his furnished apartment
a few miles from Hollywood.

He dies of cardiac arrest at age 56,

with nine substances, including

methamphetamine and
cocaine in his system.

Just as his funk was gonna be
funkier than anybody else's funk,

so would his demise be that way.

A dozen years later,
Prince Rogers Nelson

would be found in a similar state

in his Paisley Park mansion
at the age of 57.

Prince lived to be
one year older than Rick.

Goddamn... that little motherfucker.

Sync and corrections by awaqeded
www.addic7ed.com.