Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James (2021)

Love him or hate him, you can't deny that the legends you have heard around Superfreak superstar musician, Rick James, are some of the craziest stories in all of music history.  Showtime presents you with Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James, which is a "warts and all" history of the life, times, drug using, drinking, perverse lifestyle, criminally violent and abusive at times man who dominated the music industry's neo-funk freakiness of the late 70s and early 80s.  Rick was born in Buffalo, New York in 1948 and lived in the most ghetto part of the cold city, suffered years of abuse as a child, causing him to turn to music as a creative outlet, to which he excelled incredible as a multi-instrumentalist and singer.  He joined the military for a bit, bailed on that and moved to Toronto, found some musical like-mindedness above the border, then jumped from record label to record label trying to find his sound.  Once he did, he became a multi-platinum selling recording artist who put on legendary live shows, had a mansion in the Hollywood Hill that became a notorious party pad, and then like most musicians, had a terrible down fall, leading to criminal convictions, settlements, losing record deals, and eventually a life of sustained drug use that was cut short with an overdose when he was just 56 years old.  Along the way though, because of a sketch on Chappelle Show, the man became a caricature of a caricature of himself and fame came crashing back to his feet with one simple phrase, "I'm Rick James, Bitch!"