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The Song She Almost Couldn’t Sing: How ‘I’m Every Woman’ Set Chaka Khan Free
The Song She Almost Couldn’t Sing: How “I’m Every Woman” Set Chaka Khan Free In 1978, Chaka Khan was the most famous woman in funk and, privately, one of the most restless. She was twenty-five years old, the incandescent center of Rufus — the Chicago band whose multiracial, genre-blurring attack had carried her voice to…
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Through the Fire: Chaka Khan’s Journey Through Motherhood, Addiction, and Redemption
She named her 1984 signature ballad “Through the Fire,” and for Chaka Khan, the title turned out to be autobiography. Behind the ten Grammys, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, and a voice that could strip paint off a wall, there is a story of a woman who survived fame, addiction, heartbreak, and…
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The Song Stevie Wonder Almost Didn’t Give Away: How Chaka Khan and Rufus Created “Tell Me Something Good”
Every legendary career has a hinge moment — the day everything swings from maybe to yes. For Chaka Khan and Rufus, that day arrived unannounced, in a recording studio in Torrance, California, in the form of a twenty-four-year-old genius carrying a clavinet and a couple of new songs. What happened over the next few hours…
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The Untold Story of Chaka Khan: The Woman of Fire Who Became the Queen of Funk
Before she was the Queen of Funk, she was Yvette Marie Stevens — a kid from Chicago’s South Side with a powerhouse voice and a name that hadn’t found her yet. When it did, it came from a Yoruba naming ceremony: “Chaka,” meaning woman of fire. If ever a name told the truth, that was…