Autopsy on funk singer Rick James is inconclusive

LOS ANGELES (Rick James Fans Website) - The death of Flamboyant funk music pioneer Rick James has stired the world, the cause of it, too.

An autopsy performed over the weekend on "Super Freak" singer Rick James failed to establish the ca use of his death, Reuters quoted a Los Angeles County coroner's spokesman as saying on Monday. It will remain a mystery for a while. Only with the results of toxicology tests maybe can they find the reason of the death of Rick James. Test results should be available within 10 weeks.

This dynamic performer, 56, whose sensuous 1981 dance hit Super Freak came to embody the ruinous excesses of his colorful life, died in his sleep on Friday at his home in Los Angeles.
His publicist once says that James' family suspected the artist had a heart attack. Because James, the diabetic also had a pacemaker and in 1998 he suffered a stroke while performing a show in Denver.

Although authorities say the death did not appear suspicious, the Los Angeles County Coroner's Department said it would investigate the death because of the artist??s history with drugs.

Professionally, the rocker and producer had been busy lately working on an album and writing an autobiography to be called Memoirs of a Super Freak. Last month, James told BET.com that the new album would feature as many as 30 songs. "Music is a universal language, every color, every creed, every race," James told the Website. "I want everybody to enjoy my (stuff)."

James is perhaps best known for his smash hit, Super Freak, in which he sings of a "very kinky girl, the kind you don't take home to mother."
The song peaked at No. 16 on the U.S. pop charts, and found renewed life a decade later when rapper MC Hammer sampled it on U Can't Touch This, one of the biggest rap records of all time. His grooves and hooks also ended up on tracks by such artists as Mary J. Blige, Ashanti, LL Cool J and Will Smith, introducing him to a new generation of fans.
He also collaborated with the Temptations and Smokey Robinson.