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Chaka Khan is an American singer and composer who gained international fame in the 1970s as the frontwoman of the band Rufus.
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Play NowChaka Khan. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 05:32, Jun 18, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/chaka-khan-262761.
Chaka Khan. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/chaka-khan-262761 [Accessed 18 Jun 2013].
"Chaka Khan." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Jun 18 2013, 05:32 http://www.biography.com/people/chaka-khan-262761.
"Chaka Khan," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/chaka-khan-262761 [accessed Jun 18, 2013].
"Chaka Khan," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/chaka-khan-262761 (accessed Jun 18, 2013).
Chaka Khan [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 Jun 18] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/chaka-khan-262761.
Chaka Khan, http://www.biography.com/people/chaka-khan-262761 (last visited Jun 18, 2013).
Chaka Khan. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/chaka-khan-262761. Accessed Jun 18, 2013.
Although she continued to make music, Khan saw her popularity decline in the late 1980s and 1990s. Her albums may not have been selling as much as they had previously, she was still producing critically acclaimed music. She won a Grammy Award in 1990 for her duet with the legendary Ray Charles on "I’ll Be Good to You" and another one in 1992 for "The Woman I Am."
Later Career
In the early 1990s, she left the United States for London to have a better environment to raise her two children. Her daughter Milini was born in 1973 and her son Damien was born in 1979. While there, she branched out into acting, appearing as Sister Carrie in the musical Mama, I Want to Sing. Near the end of the decade, she established the Chaka Khan Foundation, which provides education programs to at-risk children and helps low-income families with autistic children.
In 2002, Chaka Khan scored her eighth Grammy Award—this time for her cover of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" with the Funk Brothers. The next year, she shared her life story with the world in her autobiography, Chaka! Through the Fire. In it, she detailed her career as well as her years of substance abuse. Chaka described the loneliness she felt while touring. She was often away from her two children, which only compounded her sadness and guilt. Chaka told JET magazine that "I think a big part of my drug thing was escaping from those feelings." She also revealed that she had a history of bad luck when it came to relationships.
With her life on track, Khan experimented with different musical styles. She did an album of standards with the London Symphony Orchestra entitled ClassiKhan in 2004. That same year, Khan faced a personal tragedy. Her son Damien was arrested and charged with murder. He and a friend had been fighting in her home when Damien accidentally shot him. Rallying her family together, Khan attended the trial and testified on her son's behalf. He was found not guilty in 2006.
Making her first original recording in years, Khan returned to the studio to make Funk This (2007). The album features a diverse mix of songs and guests. The ballad "Angel" came from a poem she wrote while high years earlier. The up-tempo "Disrespectful" paired Khan with one of her musical protégées, Mary J. Blige. On the cover of "You Belong to Me," she sang with former member of the rock group the Doobie Brothers, Michael McDonald. She included a few more covers on the album, including tracks by Prince, Jimi Hendrix, and Joni Mitchell.
In 2008 Chaka Khan appeared as Sofia in the Broadway musical The Color Purple, based on the book by Alice Walker.
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