The song was a big hit for James in 1981, charting on the pop, R&B and dance charts in the US. On the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the song peaked at no. 16 in the fall of 1981 and spent 10 weeks in the top 40. Together with two other singles from Street Songs, "Give It to Me Baby" and "Ghetto Life", it spent three weeks at no. 1 on the American dance charts earlier that year.
In 1984, Los Angeles-based novelty band Big Daddy (whose comic conceit was to cover fast songs as ballads and slow songs up-tempo, and all contemporary songs done in 1950s style) recorded the song to a slower beat as if it had been done by the Everly Brothers.
In 1989, the song was covered by thrash metal band Mordred on their album Fool's Game.
The riff of the song was most popularly sampled in 1990 by MC Hammer in his well known single, "U Can't Touch This". The song was also sampled in Wassuup by Da Muttz in 2001.
In 1997, artist Jude's song entitled "Rick James" (no. 28 Billboard Modern Rock Chart) featured the words "Oh, Rick James was the original Super Freak" in its chorus line.
The title track of Jay-Z's 2006 comeback album Kingdom Come features a sample from "Super Freak".
In the 2007 song "Freaky Gurl" by Gucci Mane, the lines in the chorus pay homage to the original Rick James song.
In 2007, French actor/rapper Disiz la Peste released a rap song in French that uses of "Super Freak" as the instrumental backing.
In 2013, British singer Lily Allen sampled the song for her single "Hard out Here".
In 2016, Brazilian band Banda Uó, uses the melody to their single "Arregaçada".
In popular culture
The song appears in the soundtrack of the 1983 movie Doctor Detroit.
In the 1986 movie Heartbreak Ridge, Mario Van Peebles as Corporal 'Stitch' Jones, sings most of the song before he is thrown out of a bar.
In season 4 of The A-Team, Rick James guest stars and performs this song in the episode "The Heart of Rock n Roll."
An instrumental version of the song was featured in the 1992 movie Batman Returns.
In a 1998 episode of Just Shoot Me!, disappointed to find out she hadn't been the inspiration to the fictional song "Nina in The Cantina", Nina Van Horn found solace in the belief that she was at least the inspiration to Rick James' Super Freak.