According to Roger, he had never mixed his "human" voice with the talk box before, and recording the vocals was tedious because he could only play one note at a time on the vocoder.

[5][6] Initially, the song received heavy airplay on radio stations in California, particularly Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area, and in Southern states.

[9] "I Want to Be Your Man" crossed over to pop radio and peaked at number three on the Hot 100 singles chart issue dated February 13, 1988.

[10] With the song's mainstream commercial success, Roger said, "I feel I've reached a milestone—yet the record still has flair and the ingredients that will allow black radio to take it to number one and make it a hit first.

[14] A review of "I Want to Be Your Man" in the September 26, 1987, issue of Billboard called the single "a sultry ballad" and noted the similarity of Roger's "trademark" vocal style to that used in Zapp's recordings.

album, Connie Johnson of the Los Angeles Times said of the song: "It's hard to resist" when Troutman sings through the voice box "with languid, shy-guy sincerity".

[17] "I Want to Be Your Man" was included on the official soundtrack albums of the films Love & Basketball (2000),[18] Pootie Tang (2001),[19] and Soul Kitchen (2009).

[21] "I Want to Be Your Man" has been sampled or interpolated by the following artists: Janet Kay (re-titled I Want to Be The One) on her third album, Sweet Surrender, released in 1989 on the Body Music record label in the UK, Lil' Troy on the single "Where's the Love" from his album Sittin' Fat Down South (1999), Irv Gotti featuring Ja Rule, Ashanti, Vita, and Charli Baltimore on the single "Down 4 U" from The Inc. Records compilation Irv Gotti Presents: The Inc. (2002), Lil Rob on "I Wanna Be Your Man" from his Best Of compilation album (2002), T.I.

[22] Chico DeBarge and Shae Fiol covered "I Want to Be Your Man" on Still More Bounce, a Roger Troutman tribute album released in 2002.