
The list of people who have lined up to work with Chaka Khan is a who’s who of 20th-century music history. Stevie Wonder wrote her breakout hit Tell Me Something Good and played harmonica on I Feel for You. Whitney Houston sang backing vocals on her second album. Miles Davis played on 1988’s CK and likened her voice to his trumpet. She turned down Ike Turner’s invite to join the Ikettes and almost appeared on Robert Palmer’s Addicted to Love, before her management vetoed the collaboration. She has collaborated with Joni Mitchell, Quincy Jones, De La Soul, Mary J Blige … and even Bombay Bicycle Club and Rick Wakeman.
That’s not to mention her indelible hits: Ain’t Nobody with her first band, 70s funk outfit Rufus; I’m Every Woman, later covered by Houston. Fans seeing Khan live at Hampton Court Palace this summer can look forward to a tour de force by the Queen of Funk – and before then, Guardian readers can ask her all about her career when she sits for the reader interview. Maybe you want to know about her befriending Fred Hampton and joining the Black Panthers as a young woman growing up in Chicago in the 60s; entering the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023 and curating the Meltdown festival last year; her forthcoming tour with Gladys Knight, Patti LaBelle and Stephanie Mills as the Queens and her recent appearance in Questlove’s Sly Stone documentary Sly Lives!
Post your questions in the comments by 10am GMT on Friday 21 March and we’ll publish the best answers in a future issue of Film & Music.
