[11] Originally released to mixed reviews, the album has since been praised as one of the greatest and most influential recordings of all time, having impacted the funk, jazz-funk, and hip hop genres in particular.

[22][23] He hired streetwise friends Hamp "Bubba" Banks and J.B. Brown as his personal managers, and they enlisted gangsters Edward "Eddie Chin" Elliott and Mafioso J.R. Valtrano as his bodyguards.

In a December 24, 1970 article for Rolling Stone magazine, journalist Jon Landau wrote: The man from Epic tells me that Sly hasn't recorded much lately.

[26]Stone's intention of a darker, more conceptual work was influenced by drug use and the events that writer Miles Marshall Lewis called "the death of the Sixties"; political assassinations, police brutality, the decline of the civil rights movement and social disillusionment.

For "Family Affair" and some other tracks Stone enlisted several other musicians including Billy Preston, Ike Turner, and Bobby Womack instead of his bandmates, and several female vocalists mostly omitted from the final mix.

[31] A somber, electric piano-based record sung by Sly (in a low, relaxed tone) and sister Rose Stone, it became their fourth and final number-one pop hit.

[33][34] Songs such as "Luv 'n Haight", "Thank You for Talking to Me Africa", and "Spaced Cowboy" are characterized by edgier, unrelenting grooves with rhythmic sounds resembling murmuring noises.

[3] As The New York Times writer Jon Pareles explains, it was "about turning away from the post-1960s turbulence of the Nixon presidency and withdrawing into music as a hazy refuge", exemplified in the opening track "Luv n' Haight" and its declaration of "Feel so good inside myself, don't want to move".

[37][38] BBC Music's Stevie Chick cites the track, with its "desperate call-and-response set to fiercely combative lick", as an example of Riot's "dark" and "troubled" funk.

[35] "Africa Talks to You" is a nine-minute funk jam written in response to the backlash Sly Stone received from estranged fans and friends, record industry associates, and the media.

[39] According to biographer Eddie Santiago, the lyrics cynically portray "fame and its cold retrogression into perceived insanity", with a chorus that reflects "Sly's feelings on being cut down in his prime like a tree in the forest.

For many years it was speculated that this cryptic track listing and the title of the album referred to a July 27, 1970, riot in Chicago for which Sly & the Family Stone had been blamed.

No other text or titles appear on the cover, although Epic executives added a "Featuring the Hit Single 'Family Affair'" sticker to the LP for commercial viability and identification purposes.

Featured on this collage were color photos and black & whites of the Family Stone, the Capitol, a grinning boy in plaid pants, the American flag with a peace sign in place of the stars, the Marina City twin towers of Chicago, a Department of Public Works caution sign, a piece of the Gettysburg Address, the tail end of a gas guzzler, drummer Buddy Miles, the Lincoln Memorial, soul musician Bobby Womack, a bulldog, several anonymous smiling faces, and Sly's pit bull, Gun.

Reviewing in November 1971 for the Los Angeles Times, Robert Hilburn disapproved of the Family Stone's stylistic change from "soulflavored" songs such as "Everyday People" and "Hot Fun in the Summertime", while saying that "there is little on the album that is worth your attention".

[54] A columnist for Hit Parader magazine gave Riot a favorable review, and stated that the album has "a lot that makes Sly the in-person rave that he is.

"[55] In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau concluded that "what's expressed is the bitterest ghetto pessimism", backed by "subtle production techniques and jarring song compositions", while declaring Riot to be "one of those rare albums whose whole actually does exceed the sum of its parts".

[citation needed] Christgau wrote in 2007 that the "temptations and contradictions" of commercial stardom consumed Sly Stone and resulted in "the prophetic 1971" album, "its taped-over murk presaging Exile on Main St., its drum-machine beats throwing knuckleballs at [Miles Davis] and [James Brown], it was darker than the Velvet Underground and Nico and funkier than shit, yet somehow it produced two smash hits, including the stark, deep 'Family Affair'.

"[49] AllMusic described the album as "funk at its deepest and most impenetrable," stating that "what makes Riot so remarkable is that it's hard not to get drawn in with him, as you're seduced by the narcotic grooves, seductive vocals slurs, leering electric pianos, and crawling guitars.

"[44] Zeth Lundy of PopMatters deemed it "a challenging listen, at times rambling, incoherent, dissonant, and just plain uncomfortable" with "some episodic moments of pop greatness to be found".

Sly had found something else to take him higher and, as a result, Riot is a record very much informed by drugs, paranoia, and a sort of halfhearted malcontent ... listening to it isn't exactly a pleasurable experience.

The album, as well as the follow-ups Fresh and Small Talk, are considered among the first and best examples of the matured version of funk music, after prototypical instances of the sound in Sly & the Family Stone's 1960s work.

Artists who have covered or reworked its songs include Iggy Pop, John Legend, Lalah Hathaway, Ultramagnetic MC's, De La Soul, Beastie Boys and Gwen Guthrie.

The introspective, yet political lyrics, the hard and dirty funk grooves, the inspirational, yet depressing songs—all of these elements would come to influence not only peers like Marvin Gaye and James Brown, but two generations of rappers and funkateers who paid homage to Sly's vision by making his samples and beats an essential backbone of their own innovations.