Ahead of the release of her 13th solo album, the fantastically titled Chakzilla, we rank the best of a sublime catalogue of funk, slow jams and tears-on-the-dancefloor disco
Chaka Khan had harsh words for the “assholes” at her then record company, Warner Bros, who she felt under-promoted 1992’s The Woman I Am, her first album in four years. Listening to Love You All My Lifetime’s cocktail of funk and contemporary R&B, you wonder if she didn’t have a point. There’s no obvious reason why it wasn’t huge hit.
Dissatisfied with her treatment by various record labels and managers, Khan released albums with less frequency in the 21st century – which made 2019’s Hello Happiness (and its title track) feel like a comeback. Producer Switch clearly knew what to do, the songwriting was strong, Khan’s voice still sizzles.
A deep cut nestled in the middle of her best solo album, What ’Cha Gonna Do for Me, Any Old Sunday is easily overlooked amid the bigger hitters, but offers three-and- a-half minutes of instant sunshine: carefree mid-tempo disco funk – a hint of Chic about the guitars – with a vocal that adds heft to the poppy melody.
I Feel for You was the smash, but the biggest streaming song from the album of the same name is, by some distance, Through the Fire. Perhaps because Kanye West sampled it on Through the Wire; perhaps because Khan brings an earthy power to a glossy, but classy, adult contemporary ballad.
The most unfairly overlooked album in Khan’s catalogue is Come 2 My House, a collaboration with Prince that had the misfortune to be released when his commercial standing was in the doldrums, despite the fact that he could still turn out funk as sensual and weird as Spoon. But it’s not on streaming; someone rerelease it!
The sessions for Ask Rufus were turbulent – drummer Andre Fischer and Khan’s then husband, Richard Holland, had a punch-up in the studio – but you’d never guess from the Chicago band’s fifth album. At Midnight is its solitary dancefloor-focused track, but its understated funk is the perfect setting for Khan’s compelling switches from softness to raunch.
Rufus’s debut album was promising, but unfocussed, not least in the fact that it kept allowing Khan to cede the microphone. But on its follow-up, Rags to Rufus, everything snapped into place. Opener You Got the Love offers thrillingly gritty funk – the perfect counterpoint to lush Philly soul – and Chaka in full effect.
Khan might have been contractually obliged to keep recording with Rufus, despite her solo success, but 1979’s Masterjam doesn’t feel like an album made under duress. Any Love is tough, disco-paced, subtly orchestrated and entirely fantastic, Khan telling a predatory ladies’ man how pathetic she thinks he is in no uncertain terms.
For all the endless turmoil in their ranks – the band’s lineup seemed to change constantly – Rufus and Khan made music that sounded absolutely effortless. The Khan-co-written big hit from their sixth album, Street Player, is a case in point. It’s an extremely cool breeze, which just makes Khan’s vaulting raw vocal seem all the more potent.
Boosted by the platinum-selling success of Rags to Rufus, 1974’s Rufusized was a supremely confident album. With one eye on the burgeoning disco scene, opener Once You Get Started sands down some of its predecessor’s rough edges, but its chattering, synth-laden call to the dancefloor is impossible to resist.
Fresh from collaborating with Khan on his superb 1978 single Stuff Like That, Quincy Jones brought a dose of production sophistication to Rufus’s Masterjam album. His sleek touch is all over the joy-bringing Do You Love What You Feel, a perfect platform for Khan’s exuberant vocal: “I wanna dance all night!”
Mid-tempo disco so wistful and sad it could cause an outbreak of ugly crying on the dancefloor: Khan sounds fantastic, especially backed by Luther Vandross. The original version, by writer Gregg Diamond’s Bionic Boogie, with a lead vocal from Vandross himself and a 12in mix by Jim Burgess, might be even better.
These days, Fate is hard to listen to without automatically thinking of the more famous track that sampled it: Stardust’s Music Sounds Better With You. But temporarily banish the thought of French touch house from your brain and luxuriate instead in the original’s glorious update of disco for the 80s. It’s a treat.
You didn’t need to read the credits to work out that Rufus’s breakthough hit was the handiwork of Stevie Wonder: its reggae-influenced groove and vocodered backing vocals could have stepped straight off Innervisions or Talking Book. But, barely into her 20s, Khan sounds entirely in charge, her voice totally commanding.
