“One day she said to me, ‘You know, I got a daughter that can sing.’ I said, ‘Oh, bring her down.’ She came down, and she held her own. She was brilliant”: Chaka Khan on her early encounter with the ‘80s star who would later cover one of her biggest hits

Chaka Khan has certainly lived the life, both good and bad. And happily, she’s still around to tell us about it.

Never one to hold back, Khan recently sat down with singer Jessie Ware and her mother, Lennie, on their Table Manners podcast. They discussed not only food – the hook on which the show is based – but also the many and varied characters that Khan has encountered during her storied career.

As you might expect, Khan has crossed paths with a huge number of artists, but revealed that she met one of them, Whitney Houston, long before she was famous.

The connection was made because, at the time, Khan was working with Houston’s mother, Cissy – herself an accomplished vocalist.

“She'd been singing with me for years, and one day she said to me, ‘You know, I got a daughter that can sing,’” remembers Khan. “I said, ‘Oh, bring her down [to the studio].’ She was only, like, maybe 13, and she brought her down.”

Inevitably, Whitney got on the mic, and Khan says that she knew right away that she was something special.

“She sang, I think it was Love Has Fallen On Me or something like that,” she recalls. “And she came down, and she held her own. She was brilliant. And, you know, I thought to myself, I was thinking, ‘God, she's going to be so great.’”

Houston would end up forming a musical connection with Khan when she covered her 1978 debut solo single, I’m Every Woman, for the soundtrack to her 1992 film, The Bodyguard. They would later sing the song together at a 1999 Divas Live concert.

Chaka Khan + Whitney Houston - I'm Every Woman (1999) - YouTube

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Another ‘80s superstar that Khan was close to was, of course, Prince. She covered his 1979 song I Feel For You in 1984, and the pair remained close throughout his life.

“We had a special love from the heart,” she says.” We had a special love and appreciation for each other as human beings.”

Did they ever date, though? “No – he’s short,” says Khan. Ouch.

But what of Michael Jackson, Prince’s great rival? According to Khan, her relationship with him was far more fleeting – in fact, she walked away from him almost as soon as they’d met.

“I met him once, and I couldn't hear him,” she explains. “He came to me and I was saying, ‘Hi, how you doing?' He said something and I said, ‘What you say? I can't hear you?’”

Jackson’s softly spoken voice just wasn’t cutting through, so did Khan ask him to repeat himself?

“No – I didn’t want him to,” she says, brusquely. “I was like, done – ‘you know what, I don’t wanna talk’. Wonderful artist, great artist, but I ain’t got time for drama.”

What, though, of the many female singers who are dominating the music industry right now? Apart from Sia, who she’s working with on her next album, Khan doesn’t single anyone out for particular praise, but she does offer her opinion on the increasingly provocative performances that we see on stage today, suggesting that, in some cases, it’s a way of masking a lack of vocal talent.

“All bets are off,” she believes. “These women are doing any and every damn thing on stage and trying to sing, too. And the ones who are doing the most physicalities with their butts and stuff, you know, and their body parts, are the ones that usually are compensating for what they don’t have.”

Khan says that, by contrast, her sole focus is always on her vocals: “I came to sing and I came to really do a good job, and that's hard work. But I don't feel like it's hard work once I'm doing it. I feel great.”

How Sia Became Chaka Khan’s Goddaughter | Table Manners Podcast - YouTube

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