In an interview with The Breakfast Club, iconic singer and songwriter, Chaka Khan, detailed how Mary J. Blige ruined her song with flat vocals. She also accused Mariah Carey of using payola and noted that Beyoncé had the makings of a great singer. In an interview with The Breakfast Club on March 2, Grammy Award-winning […]
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If you want an honest opinion on just about anything, ask Chaka Khan. The singer is one of the most celebrated voices in Soul, Funk, and R&B. She is hailed as one of the greatest voices of her generation and beyond, and Khan is respected among her peers. She holds nearly every coveted music award in her lane, and dozens of successful artists and musicians credit her as an inspiration. However, in recent years, it isn’t just Chaka Khan’s music that has earned attention.
She’s a powerhouse in the studio and her interviews. While many artists often take the politically correct route, the acclaimed singer usually dishes out opinions that give the public pause. This happened again when Khan visited Los Angeles Magazine‘s The Originals Podcast, where she was asked about her fellow singers. She discussed Mary J. Blige’s cover of her hit “Sweetest Thing,” and it was clear Chaka wasn’t a fan.
“I told Mary J. Blige she f*cked it up,” Chaka Khan said. “Number one, her vocals were flat. And I asked her, I said, ‘What time of day was it or night, what were you doing when you decided to cover ‘Sweet Thing’? And where were you at when you covered it?’” Khan claimed Blige told her she was up late, until 8:00 a.m. “I said, ‘Girl, you don’t sing nothing at eight in the motherf*cking morning. Especially if you have to get up to sing it.’”
“If you’d been up all night, smoking crack or something, I don’t know,” she added. “It might have been a whole different thing. But you don’t get up at eight in the morning to sing, girl. But she and I have that kind of relationship. We can talk. I love her. She loves me. We don’t have a problem. Now the press would love to making it a motherf*cking problem.”
If that wasn’t controversial enough, Rolling Stone’s 200 Best Singers Of All Time list was also a topic of conversation. Chaka Khan, who made No. 29. shared her ire with not only the choices but where they were placed. “These b*tches are blind as a motherf*cking bat! They need hearing aids. They don’t have hearing aids? They have no eyes. They have no ears. These babies, you know what? These must be the children of Helen Keller!’”
After suggesting “payola” was the culprit, Khan avoided commenting on one singer in particular. When it came to Beyoncé, she didn’t want any smoke. Check it out above.
Rolling Stone really knows how to get the people going. Before publishing a widely reported, scathing scoop on the alleged dysfunction on the set of The Weeknd and Sam Levinson’s forthcoming HBO series, The Idol, there was the “200 Greatest Singers Of All Time” list, which drove Celine Dion fans to politely protest her exclusion outside of the magazine’s New York office.
Chaka Khan disputed the list for a different reason, and she wasn’t polite about it. The 10-time Grammy winner joined the latest episode of Los Angeles Magazine Presents: The Originals podcast with Andrew Goldman. At the end of the hour-long conversation, Khan said she hadn’t read the list — “I don’t read” — so Goldman filled her in by reading the blurb Rolling Stone wrote about her. Khan is ranked 29th.
“Just listening to that, if I didn’t know Chaka Khan, I would say, ‘Ooh, that earns at least a five. Maybe a 10, at the least,” she said. Khan agreed with Aretha Franklin topping the list (“As she f*cking should be! Thank you! There’s justice somewhere”) and Whitney Houston at No. 2 but belted her criticism of Mariah Carey’s fifth-place ranking with the oomph of “I’m Every Woman.”
“That must be payola or some sh*t like that,” Khan said of Carey’s positioning. She also declined to comment on Beyoncé at No. 8 before commenting on Beyoncé at No. 8: “I don’t have anything to say about Beyoncé. She’s a great singer. She really has [the] opportunity to be a great singer. She has what it takes. She got the chops. She does.”
Carey wasn’t the only one to upset Khan, as Adele, Christina Aguilera — “Whatever, a lot of Black people like Christina Aguilera. She’s alright” — and Mary J. Blige caught strays.
“I quit,” Khan said after Goldman revealed Adele ranked 22nd. And that was nothing compared to her reaction to Mary J.’s spot ahead of her at No. 25.
“You know what? That’s why I feel the way I do,” Khan said. “These are some blind bat b*tches. These b*tches are blind as a motherf*cking bat! They need hearing aids. They don’t have hearing aids. They have no eyes. They have no ears. You know what? These must be the children of Helen Keller.”
Whew. You’d think Khan was left off the list like Dion.
She may be the queen of R&B, but Mary J Blige expressed some concerns about the current state of her kingdom (queendom?) on a spirited discussion with Diddy on IG live in which she claims that pop music killed the R&B genre.
Diddy took to IG live on this week via Hollywood Unlocked after he had asked his followers: “Who killed R&B?” Mary J Blige joined him for a live session (which is archived here) to discuss her thoughts on the genre’s current state and how it got there.
Of R&B being “killed,” she said that “You can’t kill something that’s in our DNA. It’s going to keep transitioning from generation to generation to generation,” noting how many people her age have passed down a love of the genre to their children.
She did however, note that many mainstream radio stations have tried to kill R&B, or at least change the genre to be more in line with mainstream taste.
She first thanked the radio stations around the country that play and support R&B music before explaining that radio stations tend to jump on the bandwagon and play whatever is popular.
She said that the radio stations call it “popular music” when artists like Justin Timberlake and Adele get ahold of it, before explaining that “it [R&B] has been popular music.”
She stated that R&B can’t be killed, explaining that “we have to keep ourselves alive. You can’t kill us because we’re already in the system, in the bloodline, the DNA.”
She cited many popular R&B artists including Chris Brown, Chaka Khan, Etta James, Usher, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Jazmine Sullivan, and SWV that have not been “killed” and are keeping the genre alive.
She also encouraged R&B fans not to be “sheep” and get angry at the radio stations, but rather be shepherds and promote the genre and request more R&B on mainstream radio.
Mary J Blige’s “Good Morning Gorgeous Tour” starts September 17.
The post Mary J Blige and Diddy Discuss How Pop Music Tried to”Kill” R&B on IG Live appeared first on The Source.
According to soul songstress Chaka Khan, her and Kanye West won’t be hugging it out anytime soon as the “AIn’t Nobody” singer reveals that she’s still upset about West using her voice on his 2003 hit “Through The Wire” from his 2004 College Dropout album.
During an interview with FOX5 New in D.C., correspondent Marissa Mitchell asked Khan about the “Through The Wire” sample, which was taken from her 1984 smash ht “Through The Fire”.
Mitchell asked the singer if she’s heard from Ye after her public criticisms of him and says that she hasn’t heard from Yeezy and furthermore, doesn’t need or want to hear from him.
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In 2003, Kanye West released one of his biggest singles to date, “Through The Wire.” While the song, which served as the lead to his debut album, The College Dropout, proved to be a breakthrough for Ye, it’s safe to say not everyone is a fan of the song.
“Through The Wire” prominently samples a song called “Through The Fire” by Chaka Khan, using a sped-up version of Khan’s vocals on the song’s chorus. In an interview with Good Day DC, she said “I was upset about sounding like a chipmunk,” and revealed she wasn’t aware how much Ye was going to speed up the vocals.
“[West] didn’t mention that he was gonna speed it up, you know, three times its normal speed,” Khan said. “Had he, I would’ve had something to say. But since I didn’t think of that, believe me, I think of it now. I ask, ‘How are we gonna do this?’”
This isn’t Khan’s first time vocalizing her disdain for the song. In 2020, she told Vlad TV that she was displeased by the final result of “Through The Wire,” as she imagined something different when he first reached out for permission to use the sample.
“I said, ‘Well, are you a singer?’ He said, ‘No, no. I just wanted to use your chorus,” she recalled. “I thought about it and said, ‘Well, he can’t mess it up because I will be singing it after all. It’s my voice.’ But he found a way. By golly, he found a way to frick that up. I was through.”
Its been almost 20 years since Kanye dropped his debut album, The College Dropout. The lead single for the album was “Through The Wire” which Ye recorded with his jaw wired shut following a near fatal car crash. The song itself features a sample from Chaka Khan’s “Through the Fire” and is pitched up to give it that signature “chipmunk” sound.
Ever since the “Through the Wire” was released, Chaka Khan has gone on record to say that she hates the song, especially how Kanye pitched up her vocals to sound like a “chipmunk.” In a new interview with Good Day DC she doubled, maybe even tripled down on her previous comments, letting it be known just how much she hates that song.
The singer was asked if she’s heard from Kanye after having voiced her disapproval on the song. “I’m not looking to hear from Kanye, either,” she said. “No, I’ve not heard from him and I’m not looking to hear from him. That’s what he did. That’s what he did with his music. I was upset about sounding like a chipmunk, ’cause he didn’t put that when he asked [if] he could use my, sample my song. He didn’t mention that he was gonna speed it up three times its normal speed.”
Khan added that had Kanye told her of his plans with the sample then she probably would have denied him his request. She also stated that Kanye is the reason why she artists specify exactly what they intend to do with her music when trying to sample it.
You can watch the interview here.
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The brand new Blue Note Jazz Festival in Napa Valley was already sporting one of the more unreal music festival lineups of the summer. With Robert Glasper as the artist-in-residence and Dave Chappelle hosting the festivities, the slate of performers features Erykah Badu; Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli performing as Black Star; Thundercat and Maurice Brown, joined by Anderson .Paak; Flying Lotus and The Soul Rebels, joined by GZA and Kweli; and Maxwell. Not bad right?
But this was merely the two-day slate, as the Blue Note Jazz Fest has now added a third day and a ton of new big-time acts. The most significant addition is easily Snoop Dogg, who’ll be performing a set alongside Dinner Party, the Uproxx-favorite project consisting of Glasper, 9th Wonder, Terrace Martin, and Kamasi Washington. Also added to the lineup are R&B and soul legend Chaka Khan, hip-hop production mastermind Madlib, Chris Dave & The Drumheadz, pianist Kiefer with Moonchild’s Amber Navran, and more.
Suffice it to say, a great thing just got even better. The festival will be going down from July 29 to July 31 at the Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena, CA. This is in the heart of Napa Valley’s wine country and all in all is a stellar addition to the summer festival circuit.
Check out the daily lineups below and get your single-day tickets here.
