Chaka Khan: 'I'm very bored with I Feel For You'

Hello to you, Chaka Khan. How are you?

Hi, Michael. I’m fine, thank you.

Where are you?

I’m in my bedroom. I woke up a little while ago. I had a late night last night and had meetings all of yesterday, so I got up a little late.

Talk me through your morning ritual.

Coffee. It takes a good hour for me to wake up – I’m a slow waker-upper. I take as much time as I can. Today, I’m going to a hospital to visit some kids, so I need to get myself together for that. It does more for me than it does for them, I’m sure. I just talk to them or I’ll bring them little trinkets or something.

How often do people try to replicate Melle Mel’s rap from the beginning of I Feel For You when they meet you? (1)

Everybody tries to do it when they meet me – it’s sort of like my curse.

Are you bored with that song?

I’m very bored of that song, yes. I guess I’ll be singing it for the rest of my life, but I’ve had enough.

When did you realise you were an amazing singer?

I thought everyone sang. When you’re young, you just assume everyone can do what you can do. I think I realised I could sing when I was 12 or 13 at a talent show. I did an Aretha song and people threw money on the stage.

How much did you make?

I can’t recall. But for me it said a great deal.

Does anyone still call you Yvette (2)?

Yeah, my mum. My sister.

Are Yvette and Chaka the same person?

Oh no, Yvette and Chaka are two different girls. Chaka is an entertainer. I don’t like her very much. She’s stressed a lot because of all the “Oh you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do that”, and it takes me away from my comfort zone, which is being Yvette now. I’m a nana; I’ve got four wonderful grandchildren and I love hanging out with them. I also love watching telly. I do my gardening.

Where did the name Chaka come from?

It’s a given name. During the pan-Africanism days in the US, everyone was looking for an identity and so I picked the Yoruba culture and religion. We used to do classes, and one year there was an African priest who would come over and he gave me my name. I was also selling newspapers and doing a free-breakfast-for-children programme with the Black Panther party.

Had you always been interested in politics?

To an extent. I’m more interested in what politics does to people. I’m not interested in who’s in office or who’s running, all of that crap, but I’m more interested in what laws do to people. How they affect people. What’s killing me now is that kids are killing each other and gun control is non-existent. We’re really in a bad way [in the US] and we’ve got to do something. Snoop Dogg is doing a beautiful campaign which is called Unloading (3), and I’m going to do it with him.

Whitney Houston covered I’m Every Woman and appeared on your album Naughty. Having battled your own addictions (4), did you feel protective of her? Or recognise yourself in her in any way?

Yeah I did, both those things. I adored her. I thought of her as my baby sister. Aretha Franklin also covers I’m Every Woman on her new album.

What do you make of people covering your songs?

Cover them. Please. Do your thing.

And you get money if they do, right?

Yeah, especially if I wrote them. If they ask me what songs they should cover I’m like, “Why don’t you do this one?” (laughs).

You were really prolific in the early 80s, but have only released four albums since 1988. Why’s that?

It’s not because I haven’t wanted to work, I’ve just been busy doing other stuff so it’s been hard to get into the studio. It can be like doing homework. The joy is singing, of course, but there’s the technical stuff [in the studio] so it’s not my favourite way to sing. I’m going back in April to make a Joni Mitchell tribute album. She’s my favourite artist and this is something I’ve been wanting to do for years and years.

You released a jazz covers album in 1982 and you’re playing the Love Supreme jazz festival in the UK this summer. Why do you connect to jazz so much?

Jazz was my first music. That’s all I knew as a kid. My dad was a be-bopper and he used to listen to all the great horn players, so that’s all I heard when I was at home. It’s always been in me.

What did you make of Lady Gaga’s foray into jazz last year with Tony Bennett?

I haven’t heard it but I’m sure it’s great. She’s amazing. Jazz is unstoppable. It’s the most cerebral music besides opera that there is.

I don’t like jazz; am I stupid?

No, maybe you just haven’t heard the right jazz (5).

You’re a big Sam Smith fan. What do you like about him so much?

He’s a great singer and he’s also a lovely human being. People were telling me before his CD came out about how he loved me, and I’m always more interested in male singers who like my music because I want to hear what they’re going to do. I went to his concert here in LA and he’s just fantastic. In a way, he filled that void left by Luther Vandross.

Do you pay attention to what’s going on in the charts?

No. I don’t listen to music at home or in the car, actually. It’s work for me. If I’m listening to music I’m trying to analyse it and going, “Oh shit, that was flat and they should have done this or that.” I listen to Miles Davis if I want to hear music, or I listen to Joni Mitchell.

You appeared on an episode of Celebrity Ghost Stories in 2013 …

That was cuckoo. They screwed it up. I told three stories and they mixed them all into one.

What’s the one about a “shadow man” who followed you on tour for years?

That was true, yeah. I was drugging then. I was self-medicating. Plus it was a very lonely time on the road, working hard and coming in late, and there’d be this silhouette at the window all night.

But that might have been the drugs?

What I think happens is that drugs open one up to a certain realm where you can see certain things. But I don’t think it was a drug-induced hallucination, I really don’t. He’s not there any more. Well, I can’t see him anymore.

Footnotes

(1) “Chaka Khan, let me rock you, let me rock you Chaka Khan” etc.

(2) Her real name is Yvette Marie Stevens, which wouldn’t have scanned as well.

(3) #ImUnloading encourages US citizens to avoid investing in the gun industry as part of their pension plan.

(4) In a 2012 interview with OK magazine, Khan said: “I snorted heroin for a good 10 years and I did cocaine, but I never injected.”

(5) I just can’t get into it, sorry.