Soul Music.com Archives: Chaka Khan
CHAKA KHAN: BACK…FROM BACK IN THE DAY
By David Nathan, © 2007, Soul Music.com
October 11, 2007
I’ve been talking to Chaka Khan since 1974. You can read our original interview right here at the Soul Music.com
Archives. It’s been deep. Through the years, I’ve been a witness to her through-the-fire-days, her almost-have-it-
together-days, her I’m-ready-for-the-world-days and her where-the-fuck-am-I-days.
I’ve played my all-time favorite “Egyptian Song” literally among the ruins of a Luxor temple in Egypt on a funky little
cassette and felt the hair stand up at the back of my neck as Chaka wailed as only Chaka can and Clare Fischer’s strings
melted into thousands of years of history. Deep.
I’ve run into her at airports, had lunch with her at L.A.’s Newsroom (where she cussed out Warner Brothers when the
execs who were paying for our lunch excused themselves for a moment or two!), watch her interrupt members of Rufus
midway through an interview while she paced back-and-forth in an altered state, laughed with her till we both fell out
when she was recording some call-outs for radio stations in London and she used some unmentionable terms which led
me to threaten to ‘come into the booth’ much to the terror of the British recording engineer who thought we were really
gonna throw down!
Chaka’s heard me cuss – like really cuss – as recently as July when we were in London at the same time after that
recording session and the driver didn’t know where he was going and I missed my train! She’s seen me turn every
shade of red when she addressed me as “Mr. Thing” when introduced to me by a Warners publicist who didn’t know we
had known each other since the beginning of her recording career!
I’ve watched her kick down microphones, circa 1975, forget the names of song titles on albums, circa 2005, do great
shows (at The Strand in Redondo Beach in particular) and bad shows (at the Hollywood Race Track). I’ve interviewed
her a bunch of times and was right there when she first coined the phrase “I’ve been to hell and back in a limousine!”
when we chatted for her “I Feel For You” album in ’84. I helped come up with the title for her album “Classikhan” in a
conversation in which I suggested it be called “Classic Chaka.” We’ve laughed lots, talked much shit, gone deep about
music and its impact, she’s heard my music and being a real cheerleader for it, she’s someone I’ve grown up with…
And I love her (thanks to The Beatles for the song title).
Watching her at a recent AOL taping (thanks, Karu, Tammy and J’ai), I marveled one more time at how this all-too-human-
but-soaring-spirit-encased-in-a-five-foot-nothing-frame can open her mouth and sing from the very top of her vocal
range effortlessly with no build up, no prep, no nothing. Just s-a-a-n-g. I remember the day when me and my soul
brother-cool-friend Jeff and I got into an “Aretha vs. Chaka” conversation. I mean got into it. I think it was the only time
we got seriously mad with each other ending up with a good ol’ “Fuck you!” “No, fuck you!” Of course, that was long
gone and now I don’t see any point in any comparison between any singers. They each got their thing and Chaka’s got
hers…and I’m there for life.
A few months back, I interviewed Chaka for her bio for her new record. I was already hooked on the music on the CD
when we talked: I loved what Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis and their production team (including the Avila Brothers) had
done for the appropriately-titled “Funk This.” I loved the song “Angel” which Chaka explained had started out as a
poem written – her quote – “in an altered state,” most especially the line “inconsistent, flying blind most of the time,
drama queen” which summed up the state most of the people I know (including myself!) live in, pretending to have it all
together but really not. I loved that she had the guts to cover Dee Dee Warwick’s 1969 soulfully-neo-hysterical “Foolish
Fool” and that so many of the original tunes – “Back In The Day,” “One For All Times,” “Super Life” – were Chaka
compositions and that the overall feel of the album made it her best album in a decade. I played it over and over and still
do for pure pleasure and enjoyment.
Beyond its use for the bio, I did extract quotes from our original interview for use in the British “Blues & Soul” magazine
article for that publication’s 1000th issue. For the benefit of those who didn’t see that (which is most of y’all!), here are
some of the questions and answers along with some additional material which came from an interview we did on
October 3, 2007 on the phone.
DN: What do you think of your career since 1974 when we first spoke?
CK: I think it’s been a good one, it’s been a career full of fascination! It’s been
immensely rewarding - although not in a financial way at all! I’m fascinated at my willpower, how I’ve been able to keep
the love alive in myself, how I’ve been able to keep going. I’ve had a recent epiphany: that God gave me this voice and
that it has had a wide influence, that I can do something empowering with it. When I think about it, I might have done
many things differently. But if I had I wouldn’t be the fascinating woman I am!
DN: What is your favourite Rufus album?
CK: “Ask Rufus” – because of tracks like “Egyptian Song” and “Earth Song.” I think then my self-expression was
kinda embryonic, introspective. I was writing about my feelings, stuff I was getting from my dreams. When we were
doing that album, I was in a landmark kind of place creatively..
DN: And your favourite Chaka album?
CK: “Whatcha Gonna Do For Me,” and that has more to do with what was going on when we were recording it. We
were in Montreux, Switzerland and it was a wonderful time in my life. I had my kids with me, my grandmother, we were
living in a chalet , we could go out to the lake and watch the swans, the ducks… And then, working with Arif Mardin and
having the best musicians on the planet! We had the best of everything on that album – Steve Ferrone from the Average
White Band on drums, The Brecker Brothers on horns…a real super band..
DN: What’s your view of the current music scene?
CK: I’m still listening to Joni Mitchell, Miles (Davis)! I do love Ledisi, I think she’s amazing… Rahsaan Patterson and
Anthony Hamilton, I love him! There are only a few people I really love – there’s hope with singers like Jennifer Hudson
and of course Mary J. I listen to jazz stations but I don’t listen to mainstream radio. You can’t dirty up your ears listening
to most radio…especially if they’re playing the same song over and over and if it’s some bitch who can’t sing!
DN: You mentioned when we saw each other yesterday (October 2) that when you were in the studio with Terry Lewis,
he would ask you your name every day. Can you say more about that?
CK: Well, he saw my ‘complications.’ For almost a week, we played music, talked about life. He absolutely he got to the
loss I was feeling. I wasn’t feeling anything at all. It was like a session with a therapist of the highest kind and the
therapist was love. These were frightening times for me and he was very easy with me. He would say, ‘I can tell you don’
t feel like singing tonight, so go home.’ That’s insight. That’s what I had with Arif Mardin too.
DN: So Terry would ask you to say your name?
CK: Yeah, it was like ‘who are you?’ as a way for me to remember who I was. I didn’t think about it before. My automatic
response was ‘Chaka Khan’ and you can be on automatic and it works for a while. You see, I had been lavishing in
‘Yvette’ (Chaka’s birth name) and this was not time for her. And ‘Chaka Khan’ was feeling insecure, I mean, it was like ‘oh
dear, oh my…’ So when he would ask me my name I would have to think about it, think about who Chaka Khan was,
who she is…
DN: I can tell from listening to “Funk This” that it is very different from anything you’ve recorded in a long time…
CK: Yes, chile. As I began to work with Terry and the Avila Brothers and Big Jim Wright, it was like here’s the butterfly
coming out. A particular kind of metamorphosis was taking place. During the recording process, I was challenged to
affect Terry – and he wouldn’t let anything go out of the studio unless he ‘felt’ it. This man is a genius and an angel, a
preacher, a brother to me, one of the smartest intellectual human beings I’ve ever met, such a blessing and joy for me. I
was spending some time with someone who understood me, who could teach me, tell me the truth. He loved my DNA –
he ‘got’ me as human being. And there’s nothing more beautiful than to be understood.
DN: Wow, sounds like making this album went way beyond the creative process…
CK: Well, I was also having an epiphany personally. A whole new set of people has entered my life and a whole set has
exited. It was like a ‘metapiphany.’ People come to me, step to me differently now.
DN: Finally, we gotta talk about the song “Angel.” When first heard it, I was like, ‘she’s singing about me and everyone I
know’!
CK: I have bravado – that’s always been part of my image as Chaka and we all know how to put on a face for only so
long. The song implies that and it references a place where we can all meet, an honest place where we exist without
make up…without pretense…
DN: How did you feel “Funk This” would be received?
CK: I hoped people would be excited about the CD. I always felt that it might have an impact. It’s got a certain
‘nakedness’ to it….
And here, y’all, endeth the Chaka Khan lesson: which summed up, might be, ‘always be true to yourself, don’t hide what
you feel, express yourself and be love.’ My words, by the way, bearing witness after thirty-three years of knowing Chaka
Khan and being able to testify that she is in a great place musically, personally and spiritually and her latest record
epitomizes her ‘metapiphany,’ funky, real, honest just like the music from back in the day. Amen.
By David Nathan, © 2007, Soul Music.com
October 11, 2007
I’ve been talking to Chaka Khan since 1974. You can read our original interview right here at the Soul Music.com
Archives. It’s been deep. Through the years, I’ve been a witness to her through-the-fire-days, her almost-have-it-
together-days, her I’m-ready-for-the-world-days and her where-the-fuck-am-I-days.
I’ve played my all-time favorite “Egyptian Song” literally among the ruins of a Luxor temple in Egypt on a funky little
cassette and felt the hair stand up at the back of my neck as Chaka wailed as only Chaka can and Clare Fischer’s strings
melted into thousands of years of history. Deep.
I’ve run into her at airports, had lunch with her at L.A.’s Newsroom (where she cussed out Warner Brothers when the
execs who were paying for our lunch excused themselves for a moment or two!), watch her interrupt members of Rufus
midway through an interview while she paced back-and-forth in an altered state, laughed with her till we both fell out
when she was recording some call-outs for radio stations in London and she used some unmentionable terms which led
me to threaten to ‘come into the booth’ much to the terror of the British recording engineer who thought we were really
gonna throw down!
Chaka’s heard me cuss – like really cuss – as recently as July when we were in London at the same time after that
recording session and the driver didn’t know where he was going and I missed my train! She’s seen me turn every
shade of red when she addressed me as “Mr. Thing” when introduced to me by a Warners publicist who didn’t know we
had known each other since the beginning of her recording career!
I’ve watched her kick down microphones, circa 1975, forget the names of song titles on albums, circa 2005, do great
shows (at The Strand in Redondo Beach in particular) and bad shows (at the Hollywood Race Track). I’ve interviewed
her a bunch of times and was right there when she first coined the phrase “I’ve been to hell and back in a limousine!”
when we chatted for her “I Feel For You” album in ’84. I helped come up with the title for her album “Classikhan” in a
conversation in which I suggested it be called “Classic Chaka.” We’ve laughed lots, talked much shit, gone deep about
music and its impact, she’s heard my music and being a real cheerleader for it, she’s someone I’ve grown up with…
And I love her (thanks to The Beatles for the song title).
Watching her at a recent AOL taping (thanks, Karu, Tammy and J’ai), I marveled one more time at how this all-too-human-
but-soaring-spirit-encased-in-a-five-foot-nothing-frame can open her mouth and sing from the very top of her vocal
range effortlessly with no build up, no prep, no nothing. Just s-a-a-n-g. I remember the day when me and my soul
brother-cool-friend Jeff and I got into an “Aretha vs. Chaka” conversation. I mean got into it. I think it was the only time
we got seriously mad with each other ending up with a good ol’ “Fuck you!” “No, fuck you!” Of course, that was long
gone and now I don’t see any point in any comparison between any singers. They each got their thing and Chaka’s got
hers…and I’m there for life.
A few months back, I interviewed Chaka for her bio for her new record. I was already hooked on the music on the CD
when we talked: I loved what Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis and their production team (including the Avila Brothers) had
done for the appropriately-titled “Funk This.” I loved the song “Angel” which Chaka explained had started out as a
poem written – her quote – “in an altered state,” most especially the line “inconsistent, flying blind most of the time,
drama queen” which summed up the state most of the people I know (including myself!) live in, pretending to have it all
together but really not. I loved that she had the guts to cover Dee Dee Warwick’s 1969 soulfully-neo-hysterical “Foolish
Fool” and that so many of the original tunes – “Back In The Day,” “One For All Times,” “Super Life” – were Chaka
compositions and that the overall feel of the album made it her best album in a decade. I played it over and over and still
do for pure pleasure and enjoyment.
Beyond its use for the bio, I did extract quotes from our original interview for use in the British “Blues & Soul” magazine
article for that publication’s 1000th issue. For the benefit of those who didn’t see that (which is most of y’all!), here are
some of the questions and answers along with some additional material which came from an interview we did on
October 3, 2007 on the phone.
DN: What do you think of your career since 1974 when we first spoke?
CK: I think it’s been a good one, it’s been a career full of fascination! It’s been
immensely rewarding - although not in a financial way at all! I’m fascinated at my willpower, how I’ve been able to keep
the love alive in myself, how I’ve been able to keep going. I’ve had a recent epiphany: that God gave me this voice and
that it has had a wide influence, that I can do something empowering with it. When I think about it, I might have done
many things differently. But if I had I wouldn’t be the fascinating woman I am!
DN: What is your favourite Rufus album?
CK: “Ask Rufus” – because of tracks like “Egyptian Song” and “Earth Song.” I think then my self-expression was
kinda embryonic, introspective. I was writing about my feelings, stuff I was getting from my dreams. When we were
doing that album, I was in a landmark kind of place creatively..
DN: And your favourite Chaka album?
CK: “Whatcha Gonna Do For Me,” and that has more to do with what was going on when we were recording it. We
were in Montreux, Switzerland and it was a wonderful time in my life. I had my kids with me, my grandmother, we were
living in a chalet , we could go out to the lake and watch the swans, the ducks… And then, working with Arif Mardin and
having the best musicians on the planet! We had the best of everything on that album – Steve Ferrone from the Average
White Band on drums, The Brecker Brothers on horns…a real super band..
DN: What’s your view of the current music scene?
CK: I’m still listening to Joni Mitchell, Miles (Davis)! I do love Ledisi, I think she’s amazing… Rahsaan Patterson and
Anthony Hamilton, I love him! There are only a few people I really love – there’s hope with singers like Jennifer Hudson
and of course Mary J. I listen to jazz stations but I don’t listen to mainstream radio. You can’t dirty up your ears listening
to most radio…especially if they’re playing the same song over and over and if it’s some bitch who can’t sing!
DN: You mentioned when we saw each other yesterday (October 2) that when you were in the studio with Terry Lewis,
he would ask you your name every day. Can you say more about that?
CK: Well, he saw my ‘complications.’ For almost a week, we played music, talked about life. He absolutely he got to the
loss I was feeling. I wasn’t feeling anything at all. It was like a session with a therapist of the highest kind and the
therapist was love. These were frightening times for me and he was very easy with me. He would say, ‘I can tell you don’
t feel like singing tonight, so go home.’ That’s insight. That’s what I had with Arif Mardin too.
DN: So Terry would ask you to say your name?
CK: Yeah, it was like ‘who are you?’ as a way for me to remember who I was. I didn’t think about it before. My automatic
response was ‘Chaka Khan’ and you can be on automatic and it works for a while. You see, I had been lavishing in
‘Yvette’ (Chaka’s birth name) and this was not time for her. And ‘Chaka Khan’ was feeling insecure, I mean, it was like ‘oh
dear, oh my…’ So when he would ask me my name I would have to think about it, think about who Chaka Khan was,
who she is…
DN: I can tell from listening to “Funk This” that it is very different from anything you’ve recorded in a long time…
CK: Yes, chile. As I began to work with Terry and the Avila Brothers and Big Jim Wright, it was like here’s the butterfly
coming out. A particular kind of metamorphosis was taking place. During the recording process, I was challenged to
affect Terry – and he wouldn’t let anything go out of the studio unless he ‘felt’ it. This man is a genius and an angel, a
preacher, a brother to me, one of the smartest intellectual human beings I’ve ever met, such a blessing and joy for me. I
was spending some time with someone who understood me, who could teach me, tell me the truth. He loved my DNA –
he ‘got’ me as human being. And there’s nothing more beautiful than to be understood.
DN: Wow, sounds like making this album went way beyond the creative process…
CK: Well, I was also having an epiphany personally. A whole new set of people has entered my life and a whole set has
exited. It was like a ‘metapiphany.’ People come to me, step to me differently now.
DN: Finally, we gotta talk about the song “Angel.” When first heard it, I was like, ‘she’s singing about me and everyone I
know’!
CK: I have bravado – that’s always been part of my image as Chaka and we all know how to put on a face for only so
long. The song implies that and it references a place where we can all meet, an honest place where we exist without
make up…without pretense…
DN: How did you feel “Funk This” would be received?
CK: I hoped people would be excited about the CD. I always felt that it might have an impact. It’s got a certain
‘nakedness’ to it….
And here, y’all, endeth the Chaka Khan lesson: which summed up, might be, ‘always be true to yourself, don’t hide what
you feel, express yourself and be love.’ My words, by the way, bearing witness after thirty-three years of knowing Chaka
Khan and being able to testify that she is in a great place musically, personally and spiritually and her latest record
epitomizes her ‘metapiphany,’ funky, real, honest just like the music from back in the day. Amen.
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