Entries in Yvette Marie Stevens (1)
Chaka Khan: The Epiphany of a Diva
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 5:33PM Bean Soup Times tagged Chaka Khan, Lil' Kim, Yvette Marie Stevens in Interviews, celebrity |
Archives Legendary singer discusses independence, new album and current R& B artists |
| BS: It's been two years since your last release. What have you been up to? CK: I started a record label about two years ago. It is called Earth Song Entertainment. Currently I am the only artist on it. Right now I am working on a new CD that I plan to release in March. BS: In 1998 you released the CD entitled COME 2 MY HOUSE on which you collaborated with Prince (also known as The Artist) and Larry Graham? How was it working with those two legendary figures and would you like to work with them again? CK: It was fantastic! While we were in the studio and on the road doing our gig it was great fun. I was really honored to work with them. Yes, I plan on working with them again. BS: We hear about record labels controlling its artists. Has anything like that ever happened to you? CK: Prince and I had been saying 'Oh we're going to do this together, we're going to work together' It never happened until we both got freed from the label. We were on the same bloody record label and they wouldn't let us work together. There is a lot of undermining going on with labels and Black artists. It was deep baby! BS: Are there any artist that you would like to work with? CK: I would love to work with Stevie Wonder and Luther (Vandross) D'Angelo and I are actually slated to work together. Mary J. and I have a duet on the new CD. Also, I would have liked to work with Marvin Gaye and Miles Davis. BS: You mentioned that Mary J. Blige and you have a duet on your forthcoming CD. How do you feel about artists such as Mary J. Blige and Erykah Badu covering or re-making your songs? CK: I'm happy. A song is a free agent. Anyone can sing any song that they want. But, unless you can enhance the masterpiece, you shouldn't touch it. I would be hard pressed to re-do an Aretha Franklin song. She did it! What can you do with I AIN'T NEVER LOVED A MAN or any of her songs? What can I do that she didn't do. There is something to say though about the quality in which some artists do things. I have to admire the hootsfah of any artists that wants to recover one of my songs. Mary J. and Erykah Badu are the two who have been doing the most covering. They are both good singers. May J. in particular is a very fine singer and writer. I think she's got her head screwed on straight. BS: How do you feel about Hip Hop? CK: There are a lot of rappers who are saying intelligent things in a respectful, eloquent way. Of course, there are some who are an exception to this. I've found some of the stuff very degrading and some stuff to be wonderful. But I still think rap is a very important medium for the youth today. Face it, if they were not singing or rapping what the hell would they be doing with all of this pent up anger and high velocity emotion that you hear? It's frightening and surprising. It's a very, very important force. These rappers came along and showed us seasoned artists how to do it. They came and started their own independent label, making their own money and most of them do not have a middle man. It gave me the courage to make the same move. BS: How would you feel if someone like Lil' Kim wanted to sample one of your songs? CK: I would not let her do that. Ordinarily a person would ask your permission and that's the protocol between artists. I would have to approve it first, especially with artists like her. Now Whitney, I wouldn't have to approve it, because I know she's going to sing the song. Mary J. Blige I wouldn't have to approve her necessarily but Lil'' Kim, I'd have to pay attention. BS: What if she ever wanted to do a duet with you? CK: If I did, I'd have to insist that she change her style. I wouldn't be a part of that plan. BS: Do you think she'll eventually have to change? CK: In many ways she's coming off as not real. The way she dresses and all the props that build her act and make her what she is. There's a lot of fake stuff going on, an illusion. You can't keep an illusion going on forever. She has to do a lot of shedding and peeling. BS: What about the videos. Every video you see has some scantily clad girls shaking their behinds and their breast are out and they are doing vulgar things. Not to mention calling women bitches and hoe. How do you feel about that? CK: That is something that I don't appreciate at all. I don't like videos. I think that music is audio.What music is suppose to do is paint a picture in your mind when you hear it. That way everyone has a personal visual take on what you're saying.What videos have done is take away that power from the individual to paint their own picture. It has also turned this industry into a circus of sorts. I look at some videos and see the raunchiness and scantiness and say what the hell is going on here? It has not been good for the industry overall in my opinion. There are girls who cut out their ribs so that they can have a waistline to do a really tight video; it's ridiculous. It has taken the art form into to too much of a visual realm. BS: You have done fund-raisers in the community in the past. Are there anymore things that you have planned for them and the community? CK: Whatever I can do I will. I am open and I try to stay in touch and talk to people to see what's going on. I do have my own charity called the Chaka Khan Foundation. We cater to women and children in crisis. We deal with the issues of health care and Ritalin. I have lobbied for that in Congress. Senator Maxine Waters and I have a campaign going against giving Ritalin to children in school. I have a couple of twelve step houses where women with children are rehabilitating after running away from abusive relationships with men. One is named after me in San Diego. I've always been into helping children and women. I love helping people but I think children are very important. |
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