Chaka Khan Photo: Supplied
Despite 50 years in the business, soul legend Chaka Khan's voice is as strong as ever, she says.
The ten-time Grammy winner is coming to Auckland for a one-off show next month.
Khan has recorded more than 2000 songs during her 50-year career, including 'I'm Every Woman', 'Ain't Nobody' and 'I Feel For You'.
She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023 and her musical collaborations read like a who's who of 20th century music, indeed two of her biggest hits were written by Stevie Wonder and Prince.
Both relationships got off to slightly shaky starts, she tells RNZ's Sunday Morning.
When Khan was in the band Rufus, Wonder was in the studio pitching songs.
"What else have you got?" she asked the songwriting genius.
"I'm totally business, when I go in to record, some people thought I was being rude, but I wasn't being rude. He played a song or two that I thought were just, you know, a little regular."
Eventually Rufus recorded the Wonder-written 'Tell Me Something Good,' a Grammy-winning smash in 1974.
"I love him dearly, we're talking about getting together to do some stuff in the near future as well."
Prince, meanwhile, used subterfuge to lure her to the studio when he was at the start of his recording career, she said.
"I was in San Francisco, with a friend hanging out, and we were club hopping and carrying on. And no one had my phone number, but somehow he knew that Sly Stone and I were great friends, and I got a phone call and I picked it up as if it was a family emergency or something, because the phone never rang, and it sounded like Sly Stone. He sounded exactly like Sly.
"I thought I was talking to Sly for a minute, and he said he was in the studio Electric Lady land, or something like that. And I said, oh, I'll be right. I'm coming down."
When she got there, it was just Prince beavering away in the studio, she said.
Not initially impressed, the relationship however improved and yielded her another massive hit, the Prince-penned 'I Feel For You'.
"We got to it, you know, a little bit, but often the greatest friendships, come after a little bit of turmoil.
"We had a tumultuous start, but we ironed it out, and we became great friends."
Khan has had her struggles with substance abuse in the past and said life on the road was hard, especially when she was younger and raising children.
"It's hard, it's very hard. I had two children, toddlers, one toddler, one, maybe four or five, they used to climb into my suitcases when I was packing.
"That's heartbreaking, it's heart wrenching."
Khan is now happily settled in rural Georgia, where she has land in a beautiful part of the state - but it she has no plans to put up her performing shoes just yet.
"Now I just have to just tweak it all and figure out how to be here in Georgia where I am, and to go out and work and not to just kill myself, because I'm not a spring chicken anymore.
"I just do the best I can. I'm doing pretty well. My voice is the same. I'm thankful about that. It hasn't changed."
She's in a good place, she said.
"I'm just in a good place, both mentally, spiritually and musically."
Chaka Khan performs at the Civic Theatre, Auckland on 16 April.
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