Chaka Khan is a Legend Subverting Expectations on ‘Chakzilla’

By Mosi Reeves

Mosi Reeves

If your only knowledge of Chaka Khan lies in her peerless catalog of R&B classics, from Seventies funk standards with her former band Rufus to the disco masher “I’m Every Woman” and the epic ballad “Through the Fire,” then hearing the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee’s bright, sparkly new Chakzilla might startle you. It’s on the “pop dance side,” as she said in one recent interview. Mostly co-written with Sia — whom Khan has called “my goddaughter” — and Grammy-winning pop producer Greg Kurstin, it’s buoyed by the same electronic titanium that has long girded Sia bangers like “Unstoppable” and “Cheap Thrills.” In a video for the title track that has already garnered more than a million YouTube views, the 73-year-old icon casts herself as a fabulous giant in high heels, restoring buildings and city streets with a wave of her hand and gold-painted nails, all as a David Guetta-styled electro-house beat thrums underneath her voice. Meanwhile, Khan went viral after another interviewer tried to call her a heterosexual “straight icon” and she retorted, “Am I? How do you know what the fuck I am? I don’t ever share that part of my life. That’s nobody’s business but mine.”

Khan’s life and career is more varied than her platinum status as a legendary funk goddess would suggest. Her years with Rufus not only included “Tell Me Something Good,” “Sweet Thing,” and “Ain’t Nobody” but also the jazz-fusion delight Ask Rufus and the melancholy cautionary tale “Hollywood.” Her solo work ranges from dancefloor cuts like “What ‘Cha Gonna Do for Me” to vocalese like 1986’s “Coltrane Dreams.” In 1984, she helped Melle Mel become the first hip-hop MC to land a Billboard Top Five hit, thanks to his appearance on her electro anthem “I Feel for You.” Her last album before Chakzilla, 2019’s Hello Happiness, found her collaborating with former Major Lazer producer Switch, leading to the rubbery fidget-house gem “Like Sugar.”

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