While on paper, Rick James’ 1980 ‘Fire It Up’ tour looked set to be a landmark moment, for the ‘Super Freak’ singer and his support act, a pre-Purple Rain Prince, it proved deeply fractious. The run would establish the two funk icons as rivals for years to come.
Both artists released their debut albums in 1978, and their early records positioned them at the forefront of a new strain of funk that fused the traditional form with emerging styles. As a result, the tour was dubbed ‘The Battle of Funk’ by the press and sold well, suggesting a promising partnership between James, Prince, and their respective camps. In practice, the opposite proved true.
At the time, James was the more established of the two. His 1978 debut, Come Get It!, had been a global success, producing hits such as ‘Mary Jane’ and ‘You and I’. Although his defining commercial breakthrough would arrive with 1981’s Street Songs, the record that yielded ‘Super Freak’ and ‘Give It to Me Baby’, he was already a prominent figure by 1980.
Prince, however, was rapidly emerging. Following his 1979 self-titled second album, which featured ‘I Wanna Be Your Lover’, it was clear he was on the cusp of wider success. James recognised this, particularly noting how Prince was drawing a racially mixed audience, something still relatively unusual within funk at the time. The tour offered an opportunity to capitalise on that momentum.
In 2018, speaking on Mike Judge’s animated series Tales from the Tour Bus, James’ saxophonist and close friend Daniel Lemelle recalled the atmosphere between the two camps. He suggested that both artists were wary of one another, each recognising qualities in the other that they felt they lacked. While one performed, the other would reportedly watch from the wings, closely observing.
Lemelle also claimed that Prince and his band carried themselves with a degree of detachment, which created tension early on. By the end of the tour, the relationship had deteriorated. James became increasingly driven in response, convinced that Prince had borrowed elements of his style, from stagecraft to visual presentation, and even the concept behind the group Vanity 6. He would later claim that writing Eddie Murphy’s ‘Party All the Time’ was, in part, intended to provoke his rival.
Accounts of the tour also suggest that the rivalry extended beyond music. According to James’ autobiography Glow, an incident involving his mother intensified matters further. He alleged that Prince refused to sign an autograph for her, prompting an angry reaction: “Prince had dissed Mom and that I was gonna kick his scrawny ass.”
A confrontation was ultimately avoided when Prince’s management intervened and defused the situation, with an apology reportedly issued. Even so, the damage had been done. What began as a commercially promising pairing had hardened into a lasting feud.
