THROW BACK VIDEO: FREAK LIKE ME

"Freak like Me" is the first single from Adina Howard's 1995 debut album Do You Wanna Ride?. Like Howard's image, the song can be best described as hypersexual. It reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified platinum by the RIAA.

The song's chorus is a lyrical interpolation of the verses found in Bootsy Collins' "I'd Rather Be with You". While the lyrics in "Freak like Me"'s chorus are different from the Bootsy Collins song, they are sung in identical melody. The song's drum beat issampled from Sly & the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song." The song returned to public awareness in 2001 when Richard Xcreated a bootleg version using Adina Howard's vocal over the backing track from Tubeway Army's "Are Friends Electric". This was followed by an sanctioned release in 2002, also produced by Richard X, featuring the Tubeway Army backing and newly-recorded version of Howard's lyrics from the radio edit by English girl band Sugababes.

The song and Adina Howard's hypersexual image are considered groundbreaking in the U.S. R&B/hip hop scene. The song portrayed a female hip-hop singer as being aggressive rather than coy in her sexuality, but in a manner that was feminine unlike the female hip-hop artists of before who dressed in men's apparel to express their aggressive image (i.e. MC Lyte). This new, hypersexual image would pave the way for upcoming R&B/hip hop female artists like Foxy Brown and Lil' Kim; in addition, it allowed other artists to become more comfortable in releasing more explicit lyrical content that could not be associated with their previous images. Examples of this are Toni Braxton's "You're Makin' Me High" and Monifah's "Touch It".