Rick James, the self-proclaimed "king of punk funk" whose brash, boisterous, self-destructive life epitomized the title of his greatest hit, "Super Freak," died Aug. 6 at his home near Universal City, Calif. According to Sgt. Catherine Plows, a Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman, the 56-year-old Grammy Award-winning entertainer died of "a preexisting medical condition."

Rick James, in June at the BET Awards, was best known for the 1981 hit "Super Freak." He was 56. (Robert Galbraith -- Reuters)

With his cornrowed hair festooned with beads and his sequined spandex suits, with his down-and-dirty lyrics about "very kinky girls . . . the kind you don't bring home to mother" and a swaggering, strutting, drug- and alcohol-fueled "livin' large" existence, Mr. James was an explosion of decadent excess, yet for much of the 1980s, the hits kept coming.

His follow-up to "Street Songs" was "Throwin' Down" (1982), which featured the hit "Dance Wit' Me." The title song of his 1983 album "Cold Blooded" (1983) topped the R&B charts; the album also featured his duet with Smokey Robinson, "Ebony Eyes." In 1985, his song "Can't Stop," from his album "Glow," was featured in the blockbuster summer movie "Beverly Hills Cop," starring Eddie Murphy.

Mr. James wrote and produced hits for Murphy and such other artists as the Temptations, Teena Marie and the Mary Jane Girls.

Mr. James won a Grammy in 1990 for Best Rhythm and Blues Song for "U Can't Touch This," on which MC Hammer sampled "Super Freak."

Mr. James's wild rise came to an ignominious halt in 1993, when he was convicted of assaulting two women. The first attack occurred in 1991, when he and girlfriend Tanya Anne Hijazi restrained and burned a young woman with a hot crack pipe during a weeklong cocaine binge at his house in West Hollywood.

James Johnson was born in Buffalo, the third of eight children to Betty Gladden, a deeply religious woman who worked as a maid and numbers runner to support her family after the children's father abandoned them. Court records depicted Mr. James as an abused child who first experimented with cocaine at 14 and who spent half his adult life as an addict. He started using marijuana and heroin in his mid-teens.

He spent time in two juvenile homes for stealing cars before he found music. After leaving high school in 1964, he enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve for a year and then moved to Toronto, where, with Neil Young, he formed the rock group the Mynah Birds.

His music career exposed him to more drugs -- and more money to indulge his habit. The Los Angeles Times, relying on information in Mr. James's court file, reported that by 1991, he was taking as many as nine Halcion sleeping tablets a night and spending as much as $1,000 a day on cocaine.

Last month, he performed his hit "Fire and Desire" with Teena Marie at the BET Awards and had finished an album scheduled for release next year. He also was in discussions about a movie based on his life.

Survivors include three children and two grandchildren.