One Song - Chaka Khan's "I'm Every Woman" with Danyel Smith

Episode Date: April 9, 2026

We're revisiting one of our favorite episodes of One Song this week featuring award-winning journalist, author, and podcaster Danyel Smith (Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop). Danyel joins Diallo and LUXXURY to break down Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman,” the 1978 disco crossover hit that launched her incredibly successful solo career. They discuss Chaka’s powerful, dynamic vocal range (just wait until you hear the isolated stems!), how the song became an anthem for female empowerment (among many other things), and Chaka’s professional and personal connections with Whitney Houston, who famously covered the song 15 years later for The Bodyguard soundtrack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, One Song Nation. This week, we are revisiting another of our favorite episodes where we break down Shaka Khan's I'm Every Woman. And to help us break it down, we had our good friend, the journalist and podcaster Danielle Smith, joined the show. And, spoiler alert, the power of Shaka's isolated vocals brought a tear to the eyes of everyone in the room. That's right. We'll be back next week with a very unique episode. But until then, enjoy our One Song episode on I'm Every Woman. Luxury. Today's song is from one of the most dynamic, most legendary singers of all time. This disco crossover hit launched her solo career and reached number one on the Hot Soul singles chart in 1978. And it's been deemed one of the greatest dance songs of all time. We know you've heard it in plenty of TV shows, movies, and parties.

That's right, Tiala. Her song became an anthem for female empowerment, diversity, resilience, and self-love. For five decades, she has been a trailblazer for women in music, breaking down barriers with her dynamic voice and powerful stage presence. It's one song, and that song is I'm Every Woman by Shaka Khan. I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ, Diyah LaRiddle. And I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist, Luxury, aka the guy who whispers interpolation on the internet. And if you want to watch one song, please go to our YouTube channel and watch this full

episode. All right, let's start. Okay, well, we've got one hell of an episode for you for our longtime listeners. You know we mention Shaka any chance we get. It's true. She is really the gold standard for me when it comes to the human voice. For us. And we're done with it.

Yeah. Yeah. And today we're joined by a trailblazing journalist who might be just the perfect guest to talk about Shaka Khan with. She's the author of the award-winning book, Shine Bright, a very personal history of black women and pop. And the creator and host of the NAACP Image Award nominated podcast, Black Girl Songbook, which focuses on the stories of black women in music. Also, she's the former culture editor at ESPN, the editor-in-chief of Vibe, the editor of Billboard. And if that wasn't enough, the New Yorker has called her one of the nation's most astute chroniclers of pop and hip-hop culture. Danielle Smith, welcome to...

Welcome to the show. Hey, everybody. Do we get all the accolades? There's so many more. We couldn't fit everything. It's too much. We've got to stop. Like, we've got to stop.

I didn't know you were Vibe's first African-American editor. Is that true? I am in fact. I am in fact. Who was editing before you? Well, there was Jonathan Van Meter Okay Was the first and founding editor in Chief of Vibe

And then there was the great Alan Light Yeah, Alan Light, sure Alan was my boss Okay, so these are good, these are good folks They are and Alan is my heart The I goes both ways I guess is all I'm saying I was just curious because I didn't know that

I was one of your readers at the time And I just knew Quince's magazine You know? It was, it was but yeah definitely I am the first woman And the first black person That's awesome to be at Ernstiva vibe.

Okay, so first of all, I want to talk about your book a little bit. You talk a lot about credit in your book. Typically, black musicians being credited, and even more specifically, female black musicians going uncredited or insufficiently credited. There's one quote of yours I found. I think you are interviewed in Pitchfork. Black Pop is shot through with the spirit of reparations

from the blues, jazz, and the early R&B era. I'm paraphrasing a little bit. Didn't mean to mangle your words, because your prose is beautiful. Thank you, though. Absolutely. where so many artists were just robbed of money, of credit, of cultural status, and of their dreams coming true. We talk a lot about that on this show. So I felt like this would be a perfect

entree for talking about Shaka. Do you feel like she has gotten her due? Is there something about Shaka in particular on this topic that you want to talk about? Well, first, just let me say how happy I am to be here. Like, it's just good to talk about music at any time, especially with people who love and respected as much as you guys do. So I just really as much appreciated. I'm so happy to be here. If you're asking me if Shaka Khan, has received the credit that she is due in the music world, then the answer is absolutely not. I would also say that most black women who make music,

especially soul music and pop music, classical music, jazz music, it doesn't matter, they are not receiving the credit that they're due, which is not to say that they're not receiving credit. It's that they're not receiving the credit that they are due for the impact that they have had and the influence that they have had. Absolutely.

I mean, you can think of anything, You can go back to, is it Van Morrison? Na-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-A. Do you remember when? Are we used to sing? Shia la-la-la-la-la-la-la. I mean, that's Whitney Houston's mom singing that chorus. Oh, wow.

That's her and her sweet inspirations. And that is what we think about when we think about that song from Van. I had no idea. I didn't know that. It's Whitney Houston's mom. That's Sister Houston? Yeah, Sissy Houston. And the sweet inspirations are singing background on that song.

Did not know that. So we're already, I see my, our producer's mouth is a gape right now. Like, I think there's some facts in your head that you'd be amazed or like, even, even with, you know, self-proclaimed music, there's, we do not know these facts. I don't think I thought I knew a lot about Sissy Houston, but I did not know that. And then everybody goes, oh, counting crows and that amazing song that sounds just like Van Morsen. It's like, well, do they sound like Van Morsen? Or do they sound like Sissy Houston? The origin get buried and then they get erased.

Yes. front of these people. And Shine Bright, you tell these under the radar stories of black women who shaped America's music into what we know it as today. You're talking about Shaka's contemporaries like Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, and Patty LaBelle. You're talking about her family. You weave your personal connection to these women and their songs into the book.

How did you choose which artists to talk about and which stories to tell? The people I wanted to talk about, the women I wanted to talk about, were women who I loved and my sister loved, who my mom and her sister loved, and who my grandmother and her sister love. Those women, like, that just, I heard all the time in whatever household I was in as a kid or a teenager, it just makes up my own personal, like, life soundtrack. And I wanted to talk about those women, because believe me, at the beginning of writing Shine Bright, I was trying to write about every single black woman that's had a top ten pop hit. It's like 1940.

And I was trying to include every single person in my editor, Chris Jackson at One World, was like, okay, so what we're not going to do is. It was like, this is not a set of encyclopedias. So I had to narrow it down. And it was heartbreaking. I really wish in my book, I was talking about Shaka Kammore. But I grew up in a Whitney Houston household and a Nally Cole household. And you know, every household had their favorites.

I love Shaka. She's a personal favorite. I wish I had written more about her in Shine Bright. Yeah, I mean, we were wondering if that was one of the reasons you wanted to talk about her on our show because you weren't able to talk about her so much. We looked in the index and we were like, huh, it's not in here. Yeah, there's not a lot. And I consider myself to be like, I can't believe I'm going to say it out loud, but I'm just going on ahead and say it. I consider myself to be quite the Whitney Houston scholar.

There's no doubt about that. I would say the same about Janet Jackson. and then I would also squeeze in there, Mariah Carey. I'm not a Shaka Khan scholar. I am a Shaka Khan lover. Yes. Well, here's the good news. After this episode, you will be a Shaka Khan scholar.

Okay, because listen, I'm going to be sitting back listening to you guys. You were talking about album cuts, and I was like, ooh. Let me find out. Do you find yourself sometimes needing to separate the two, like, especially as a journalist, especially with your history of interviewing these people? Does it sometimes you have to save a place so that, the music connection you have that might be so emotional that you don't change it potentially by knowing too much or even knowing the person.

My love for, say, Whitney Houston, it can't ever really probably be changed, barring unforeseen news of some kind. I could know every single thing about her from embryonic days to the very last day. But the thing is, I have to choose the people, though, that I am going to. want to be scholarly about. Yes. Because if you spread, if I spread myself too thin, then I'm going to end up knowing a very little about everybody, which is cool.

I love a good generalist. I do. But for me, I like being able to say, if you want to ask somebody about Winnie Houston, Janet Jackson, and Mariah Carey, you should probably ask Danielle. Before we dive into I'm every woman, I wanted to ask you, Danielle, how did you discover Shaka? I mean, you've kind of hinted, but what was the first exposure and what does I'm Every Woman mean to you? My name is Daniel Smith and I am a California girl.

There you go. Right. Born and raised in the great country of California and take some pride in it. Yeah. As a kid, I had a real fascination with songs that had any California reference. So California dreaming, Hotel California. I left my heart in San Francisco Oh, great one.

Do you know the way to San Jose? And then we get to Shaka Khan Hollywood. Oh, this way's going to Hollywood. Showing the ways moving to Hollywood. He's huffering into Hollywood. Oh, wow. Sort of a, not forgotten.

But I think you have to live in a town that does like, you know, that quiet storm old school mix of music because that is not the that is not the current go-to. for Rufus featuring shopping. Shout out to K-A-C-E, Southern California's finest. I had a real fascination with Chaka-K-K-K-A-K-K-K-KALYWYW as it related to what is my favorite song of all time, which is Gladys Night and the Pips, Midnight Train at Georgia.

Wow. Yeah, there's never any question that doesn't change. It's so it shall be forever. Because Hollywood seemed like he was going to Hollywood, and then Gladys had the, he's going back south. So in my... It was one dude. Right.

In my mind, no, but even right now in my mind, it's the same dude. Because the songs are being played around the same time. And I just had in my mind that Shaka was seeing him off and Gladys was seeing him home. You think that while he was here, he was listening to Hollywood swinging. Probably. I did that might be the middle piece. No, and let me tell you something. And why not?

Shout out to Kulangay. Absolutely. Going into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. this year, as a matter of fact. But yes, so that was me, Hollywood. And there was something about that song that was like, if you were an ambitious girl, which I've been, since even having any consciousness of, like,

who I am and what I'm about, and you're sort of singing about ambition, but, like, through the idea of this guy, when really I think it was her. It was her. Yeah. Hollywood representing ambition, like escape, living your dreams.

Yes. But it wasn't as comfortable. for women and black women to sing about it like that. Just the same way with Midnight Train to Georgia, it wasn't, because I don't believe that Gladys got on the train with him. I think Gladys saw a lot. She never says in the record. That's true.

I hadn't thought about that. She never says it. I wanted to talk a little bit with you about, you talk about in your book, the history of pop music, this great quote. Throughout the history of pop music, it is the rich, high, strong female voice, which is the prize.

Yes. I love that line. It really spoke to me, because you're talking about across gender. You mentioned from Frankie Valley and like into the Bee Gees, right? Even high voices Michael Jackson, Michael Bolton, George Michael. These are potentially people capable of singing lower, but they choose to go high. It does pop off the radio.

But the fact that it is a female register is so interesting. And to connect that to Shaka, and then comes the question, sorry for the long buildup, I found this really interesting interview between Joni Mitchell. We'll also be talking about and Shaka in interview last. year. Joni says, when I first heard Shaka, I thought it was Stevie Wonder. And Shaka goes, most people thought I was a man. Yeah. I had never really thought about that. So there's potentially a bit of a gender reversal in Shaka. She's got this rich, strong, powerful voice. So people talk about range. And the highest is always prize. Everyone wants the whistle register.

Oh my God, the whistle register. And it's like, yeah, but can you listen? How long can you listen to the whistle. Minnie Repertin throws it once every album or two. You have to be, you know, every once in a while. Yeah, dole it out. But Shaka's starting down here. It's like Gladys.

We don't always have to be way up here. I'm sure when Shaka feels like reaching, she can get pretty, pretty high. She sure can. But when she's singing big, long, and loud, if this is high, high, and this is Lolo, and she's singing right here, she's a monster.

She's got, we're going to be listening to all of those voices, too, when we get to the stems. And we are so excited. to dig into this song. We're going to hear the low-lows, the woe. Yes. Right, she's doing that. And she's also belting.

She's doing it all. We talk on this show about, like, the different, how different singers can have different strengths and qualities. And I was like, I love how, like, wispy and gentle mini-ripperton sounds. And I love how, like, you know, big and, like, strong. And, like, the term I always come back to is brassy. There's like a certain note that Shaka hits on several of her songs. I noticed that there are a couple of my favorites, and it always strikes me as brassy.

And then to find out that the two of them were playing a gig together in the early days. And that was one of the shows where she catches Ike Turner's attention, and he tries to fly her out to, you know, Los Angeles. And he says, hey, I want you to be one of the Ikeettes. It's just funny that Minnie Riperton is at that point in her career. I think the show is in Chicago. Minnie Ripperton with one group and his chaka with another group. Wow.

But there's like there at the very beginning and I'm like, you know, two different voices and styles couldn't, you know, exist. But like, black people are digesting both and enjoying both. Yes, yes. Yeah. So, but like, Cybor, so Ike was just out here collecting Iquettes? Apparently he was inviting people to become Iquettes. And she said she turned him down. No.

Yes. No. I wonder why. Probably worked out quite well for her. According to our research, there was a talent agent. He booked Ask Rufus, which was the name of the group of the time. And they also booked Rotary Connection, which had Minnie Ripperton. And so they're both sitting on this card.

And there was a guy there who named Bob Monaco. He has the booking company. He's like, Ike, you've got to check her out. Ike flies her out to Englewood, ironically, at a place called Bollick Sound. Okay. And he offered her on the spot to be a Nica. And she declined. apparently she was happy just sticking with Rufus.

So before we get into how I'm Every Woman was made, we still got to talk about Shaka Khan's origin story. She started singing as a child on the south side of Chicago, South Side, and was influenced by Gladys Knight and Billy Holiday. She formed a girl group with her sister called The Crystallettes. And she joined the Black Panther Party as a teenager. This woman has lived many, many lives. All right, let's talk a little bit about Yvette Stevens,

her birth name. She's actually named in a Yoraba ceremony. Her full name is Shaka, adune, adufe, yamuja, Hodahare Karifakhan. Which is amazing and powerful. But anyway, her given name, Yvette came after a Stan Getz song.

Her dad loved saxophone music and loves stangets. So her voice comes from horns. Altau Sax is mainly is something I've heard her say in an interview. That almost makes sense with the way she sing. When she thinks about singing. She's thinking like a jazz saxophone player. And we're going to talk about jazz on this episode in a big way. But she worked with Miles Davis. They did, they worked on the album Two-Two, among other things.

And she said that Miles paid her the highest compliment when he said she sounded like his horn, his muted horn. And she just took that to heart and like is living with that like satistactorily for the rest of her day. Absolutely. Yeah, that's quite a compliment. So by the way, her, she's got a sister. She's Yvette. Her sister's Yvonne, who goes by Taka Boom. Just a little fun fact. She was briefly in a group called The Undisputed Truth who have a really amazing song

I gotta play for you called You Plus Me equals Love from 1976. And it must be said that her brother is also a musician and he co-wrote this song. Doing Debutt by E.U is a co-write

with Mark Stevens. Yeah. And Marcus Miller. There are still parties. you can play in my hometown where DeBud still goes off. Still goes off. Okay, first of all, there's a million of those parties. There'll never not be a party.

There was a point where there was like, you know, like prime time, you can slip it into the mix. Nowadays, it's like you kind of have to be a certain age. But like, you know, it still goes, at the right cookout, at the right picnic, it can still pop. I was about to say, I think I'm that certain age, though. Now, I'm going to seem like the resident idiot here.

But for most of my life, I thought that Rufus was a guy in the group. I thought Rufus was the... Did you think it was Rufus Thomas or something? I thought it was Rufus. It's called Rufus. I figured like, okay, so there's a bandleader named Rufus, but Shaka's the star.

Turns out that that is not the case. Rufus is a group that starts out there. They're originally called Ask Rufus. They got their title from a classified ad for a mechanic. Luxury, can you walk us through so to Shaka joining the group and the hits that they then produced? Listen, I think we're going to do a real brief run-through because there's a huge...

Yeah, this could be a whole other episode. This could be its own episode. The number of band members in Rufus is insane. That would take an hour just to list everyone who was in the band. But this is Chicago band, 1973 to 83. Just, they were huge. They had three consecutive number one Billboard, R&B, Chalkoppers. But their biggest song possibly, and certainly my favorite by a country mile,

this might even be my favorite Shaka song, is this one. She's an instrument, is the thing. Yeah. My favorite. That might be my favorite. That song on a Grammy. That was the best R&B vocal performance by a duo. Group or chorus, 1975.

Should be noted, in case you didn't already know, that's a Stevie Wonder song. But in an interview I heard recently, Shaka says that she co-wrote the lyrics, but she was young and didn't understand publishing. So in her mind, she goes, I gave Stevie all the credit because I was so honored to work with him. So let's be sure to give Shaka Khan her credit as a songwriter. She's her writer. She's writing songs. Yes, she's not always writing songs, but.

Shaka should get a portion of the IP for this song that has been made millions of dollars. She's in a club of so many women who were just honored to work with such and such and such and such. And their contributions should have been intellectual property, which would have been mailmocks money for life. For life. I always think about on the old 45s where it had the songwriting credits in the parentheses underneath the song title. And it's like, as a kid, I was always like, well, why isn't that the same name as the person who's singing it, right? And so then you live and learn. And when I just think about, like, just off the top of my head, Dionne Warwick. I was thinking her exactly as you said that.

And we're doing it for the same reason. Yeah, it's like, so Dionne never wrote. I just find that she's not even all the time down as vocal arranger, like. Because the definition of writing is lyrics and melody, but it's just, I just find that she's not even all the time down as vocal arranger, like. but it doesn't include the other choices that are made creatively, phrasing, syncopation, all the subtle things that, you know, even 1% would be mailbox money for life. Absolutely. We talked about this on the Doja Cat episode because when you hear Paint the Town Red and you hear Deon Warwick's voice, you're hearing the sample throughout the song

and it's a person who isn't made a dime off of that, off of that version of the song or the original. She wasn't paid anything because she wasn't considered a writer. And I think that's criminal. Yeah. No, it's criminal. It makes me... Not cool, back. Right?

It's that combination of, like, anger and heartbreak for me with this kind of thing. Because I know how hard those women worked in those studios. Shaka starts her solo career while she's still in Rufus. What motivated her to make her own music? We can kind of take a guess. I mean, like, we know that, like, at some point, the label was like, it's not Ask Rufus, it's Rufus. It's, okay, it's not Rufus. It's not Rufus featuring Shaka Khan.

And at one point, like, Rufus and Shaka Khan. Let's make sure to get it. get Shaka in front when they take the pictures and everyone else is blur it out. It's this classic thing where it's intended to be a band. And Shaka talks all the time about how she loves bands and being part of a team. And she didn't want to be singled out. And it caused tension, as you can imagine. And many other things led to more tension over the years. She's making the cover of Jett, you know, like, she's, anybody who read JET, you know, she's like beauty of the week every week. You know, like, it's like, she's taking the world. It's magnetic. Yeah. Absolutely. And by, listen,

we are going to give flowers to Bobby Watson and all the proud members of Rufus. Not all 20, though. We don't have time for all of them. But I sort of feel like, fellas, you know, this is the woman who is sort of setting the plate, you know, but we're going to get in tall. But also it was the era of the black band,

everybody from Lakeside to Earth, One in Fire, on and on and on and on, you know, the Commodores, everybody. And folks were realizing that people are sort of, their charisma is causing them to be chosen, sometimes by themselves. Remember, what was it? Theodore Pendergrass Jr.

You got to talk about Teddy? Yeah, we're going to go. Harold Melvin in the Blue Notes. It's like people were emerging. That one concert, that one performance on Soul Train is very tense. Yes, that's what I'm saying. Like, Harold Melvin was like, what? I'm Harold Wilvin.

Exactly. So I just feel like there was a moment where we were merging, like when we were, it was a transition from the era of the black band, even the Texan Five. Yes. The era of the black band to the era of the black star, the solo pop star, the Supremes, even getting out of bands and just going into groups. Like, people were emerging. I'm paying 36 people back here.

Right. Listen. And that did have, that did have something to do with it. Yeah, there's economic reasons for it. There's economic impact. Yeah, when you're splitting that money that many ways. So you have this person who originally joins the group as the singer. who is now becoming absolutely a star into her own right.

And now she's going solo. After the break, we'll dive into how I'm Every Woman was made, and we'll be right back. Hi there, welcome back to one song, My Man Lectery. My Man Dialli. I'm Every Woman is on Shaka's first solo album, named Shaka. She's still in Rufus when this album gets made. Tell us, how did I'm Every Woman, the song, get made?

Let's talk about I'm Every Woman. So she's working with Arif Martin, who is a Turkish producer, worked at Atlantic Records for 30 years, along with his homie, Edrigan. That's how he got the job. But he did, now this is, he's a classic producer, arranger in the old school tradition where he's not himself a songwriter or musician, but he brings everyone together. He brings the best of the best, and that means the best musicians, the best songs.

So the record, we were talking earlier about the jazz tradition. So every song in this record, they're all written by other people. So he's worked with Aretha, Donnie He said. Hathaway at this point, Bee Gees, Queen, and average white band who will come into play in this song, interestingly enough, in a few places. He referred to Shaka as his instrument. So in a way he kind of thinks of her voice in the same way that he's thinking of the drummer's drums and the bass player's bass. He's thinking sonically, how does this all fit together? And he also brings in two of my favorite people, Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson. Let's talk about Ashford and Simpson.

You know, I feel like this was everybody's favorite couple in music, you know what I mean? Even before it saw it as a rock, these were some people who produced one of my favorite garage classics, and we're going to talk a little bit about garage, garage classics, a song called Booji Boojooie that was...

I'm wearing your Larry Levant. People watching on YouTube, you're getting a little bit extra. Because he's got Larry Levan, the famous Paradise Garage DJ on his shirt. Ashrin Simpson, make it great songs. Everybody wants to be... Just great. Bouget, bojoo-je.

Yeah, exactly. By the way, I like the instrumental, but they made the music end the, in the, they did. Also, I feel it's interesting that Ashford and Simpson were chosen for Shaka's debut, because they were chosen for Diana Ross's debut with Reach Out and Touch Somebody's Hand.

So I feel like that was a look. Yeah, that was a look. Is this a New York scene? I feel like this very New Yorkie. It's not a New Yorkie. He is very New Yorkie, and it's very, Ashran Simpson still had to dust the Motown. Uh-huh. Okay, from all those early, like Tammy Terrell, Monty Gay-Songs.

They did A-N-O-Mountain-N-Mountain. They did the A-Mount-Song. They did the A-T song, just a M-Towneat songs. You know what I mean? Just some light. Just some light-were. You know what I mean? Just some light-work.

No big deal. Well, okay, so he's gathered these great people together. So this song is written by Valerie Simpson is playing piano one day. And she's playing the piano part that you're about to hear isolated. Now, of course, it's not recorded. by her, but picture her playing that piano line. And Nick hears it and starts singing along, he comes up with the I'm Every Woman line, which is really interesting because he is not a woman, interestingly. But when she heard him say it, they both realized something clicked. Like the sound,

the lyric, everything about it was perfect, the first instant it came into being. So he comes up with that first line that became the iconic title. And Valerie, in an interview said, I immediately knew It was a great title. It was one of those things that just came together. But we were having trouble with the verse. So Valerie says, I told him to put his hand on his hip and dig into his feminine side. I love this.

And it will be there. And that's where he came. And then it worked. Oh, it worked. So that's how the song came together. Valerie on piano and Nick on lyrics. And they wrote, I'm Every Woman. Let's get this.

Where should we start? How about we start with the drums? Let's do it. All right, well, on drums, we have Steve Ferone from average white band. Just basic disco groove. 113 VPN. Nothing super fancy going on, but you don't need much.

This is a background. This is a groove. I'm dancing on the inside. Everyone's happy. No one's angry. Little ghost notes come in here. Right? Little thingies in there.

So he's doing that all through the beginning of the song. In the second verse, he throws in a little bit of a 16th note. You'll hear that. That right there. Boom to Gapum. Real subtle things on top of a strict four-on-the-floor groove. Nothing too fancy. But it's a little bit of a build.

It's a little bit of a build. It's a little bit of a build. And then we add the open hi-hat, and then you will have heard all the things the drums do. So let's listen to that in the second chorus. Classic disco. By the way, did you notice that he doesn't start the open hat right away? No, I think it's all part of the build,

and I think it's very intentional. I feel like there's a song that builds in very subtle ways over the chorus from the beginning to the... the middle to the end. Oh, absolutely. It's got a huge build. And just one thing I wanted to point out with that is that these are all session guys. I'll name them as we go. But what happens in these, especially kind of classic 70s, New York recording studio, let's get Arif Martin, let's get the best and the brightest in and give them a chart and have them hear the song. They may have only heard the song for the first time on a demo tape minutes before they got to their stations to play.

So what you hear as we listen along is a lot of like kind of finding ideas and like maybe abandoning them and trying something else, you'll especially hear that on guitar, but I heard it on drums a little bit. I hear him going like, oh, how about a little bit of a ghost note? Okay, I'll keep using that. I think that's really interesting. That's also of its era. There's no looping. We're not in the digital age where you take the one perfect four bar loop and then you just cut and paste it all over. No. No. Okay, so this is excellent. Yeah. This is amazing. So, yeah. You just throw the drums. And really, I could go home. No, no, no, no. Because guess what? Yeah. Now we're going to hear bass.

No, because is this the nerdiest music show? I mean, we'd love to think that it is. And if you say so, it's giving. It is. It is. It is. In the very best way. You have not even really seen a stir-down yet.

I haven't really, right? I haven't. Not yet. I'm just at the beginning. Okay, okay, I'm ready. I'm ready. My man, luxury. What's going on with the bass stims?

The man on bass is Willie, and you all know who he is not just from the hundreds of famous songs he's played on as a session player, but he's also Dave Letterman's bass player in the world's most dangerous band. And this is him playing with a really interesting effect on his bass, which I think is the chorus effect or a digital delay, MXR digital delay. And here he is. Add some drums back right here. It's just a stone groove.

It's just a stone groove. It's like the best thing in the world. In some ways, it's almost an anonymous groove because usually I can hear these parts, these stems and be like, oh, that's this part of the song. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There, that could be any number of songs. It really could be. Yeah.

Yeah. It's because there's actually only one section where there are chord changes. Like, we're kind of just locked into the root note this whole time. I also think that that piano and eventually those strings, because I gotta talk about those strings. I'm such a fan of the strings. We're gonna get to them. Be patient. The piano and the strings are really just, they're working it for me.

And I might ask you to do something in particular once we get to it. But you're nailing it because the bass, the drums, and even the guitars are really just a rhythmic bed. And you could almost have any. disco top line on top, but it's when that piano comes in that you'll start to hear the song. But first, there's a little, some delicious, some delicious, delicious, delicious moments. I was mentioning before that in the chorus we've got the single, it's just one quart, so there's no harmonic variety. But we do have some fun moments in the transition from the verse to the chorus, and here that is on bass and drums. Just a little nice melodic. I'm going to play you one other

thing, by the way, we were talking about before how the process of making this is, again, they may have just heard the song, maybe for the first time ever that morning, given a chart, here's how the song is arranged, you play these parts, and then the assignment a little bit for Will Lee, for the drummer, for the bass player, for everyone, is to mess around with it. Like, take that as a starting point. And every now and then there's moments that are imperfect, and we love that because it just shows in this day and age everything's pro-tooled, that for classic iconic songs, there can be little clams, little imperfections. So here's where Will Lee drops a note by mistake.

Come on, Will. I'll point it out. It's not there intentionally. I'll play it in the mix with the drums. It was just a moment and they left it because it was like, yeah, it's fine. And it never happens again. This is just my theory.

Like, when something like that happens, it's just a little clam and you just leave it. Maybe James Brown finds you 50 bucks, but not in this case. We do a lot of conjecture on this show. Conjecture is fun. But our lawyers are at the ready. Storytelling.

It's storytelling. Listen, that's the baseline. there's one last part I'll play, and then we'll get into the delicious piano. In the last minute and a half of a song, Shaka goes crazy, and we will be hearing all of her vocals in a moment. But the rest of the band is just kind of vamping. They're just going between these two chords. So to make it interesting, you kind of like play around a bit.

So this is Will Lee meandering. You didn't have to hit those notes, but he wanted to. He wrote about five new songs in that little meander. Sounds great. You didn't know where he was going either until he got there. But that's why you got the call in those days, right? Yes, that's why you got some. Why you got the call? Because people knew you, they could trust you to use your imagination

to be confident about being creative. Like, I love my time. Yeah. I do. I love my era. I love the era of sampling. I love the era of looping. It's its own genius and creativity. It's its own genius. That's right. It's a different thing. But I also, this is the music of my childhood. And it's like when you hear it broken out the way you're breaking it out right now. Like, honestly, it's emotional because you hear the work. Yeah. You really do hear the work. It's amazing.

You hear lyricism and things other than the lyrics. Like, you know, you hear that little piece. And by the way, some of this goes back to the fact that, like, we don't really do bands in any genre of music now. Like, everybody's a solo artist. Oh, modern. Yeah. They said, like, there wasn't one band in the Billboard Top 100 recently. And when there's just one person, essentially sitting in a laptop and doing it,

you don't get those little flourishes as much. You know, like, we're like, oh, I'm just the bass player. Okay, so I'm going to make this bass really stand out. Like, you don't get all of that. Let's get into that piano because that piano is doing amazing, amazing work. And let's remember that the song begins life when Valerie Simpson was playing a piano. She's not on this track. It's Richard T.

Shout to Richard T, but shout out to Valerie Simpson. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Love that. And Richard T added a little bit of sauce, so let's listen to him. Let's do that. That's all I need. Like, that could have been the song, I'd still be here.

Sounds like a Masters at Work House remix or something. It's so house music. Listen to that. It's so house music. Before there was House. It sounds so happy. But it's also garage. It just sounds like happiness.

It does. It sounds like great. It just sounds like gospel. It's gospel, I was going to say. Yes. Give us some more. Give us some more. It really is the best.

It is gospel. There's no doubt. It is gospel. Gospel into disco, house. To hear Larry Levant tell it, garage was dance music with instruments, and then with house, they did it on electronics. That's what he would do. And to add another layer, because we talk about this on the show, the intertextuality of it all, and you're doing it at the garage, which is the church of music. And he is the DJ, the preacher.

It was literally a garage. Literally a garage. So the combination of these things, there really is a religiosity to it. Like, it's ecstasy. Yes. Can we hear some more piano, please. Extatic piano coming up. So, friend.

So this is the same section I was playing for you before, where the bass gets a little crazy going into the chorus. That's like one of the most musically interesting moments because the rest of it is damping on the groove. Here's what the piano does in one of those moments. I just feel we should be dancing. I don't like it. You can't get up and dance. It sounds so good. I have a question.

What does that sound? I think it's giving me Donald Bird love has come around. If anybody knows that song. Yeah. That's what I'm hearing. some of that piano bill. What a great time. Late 70s.

I did not even think that that was the title of that song. You don't remember that? No, I remembered it when you started singing it, but I didn't remember it by the title. I'll play a section of it because it's one of my favorite songs of all time. I love that song. You do hear it, though. By the way, it's not even saying that they sound like. I'm saying like they've got the same vibe.

They've got that same good energy. Yes. No, you're absolutely right. And the sound of the piano chords, that rhythm, which we are all connecting kind of collectively. It's like, this is 1978. There is no house music yet. But there's about to be, and in the meantime, there's disco, and this is the lineage. And it's,

the piano is one of the thing that ties it together. So, let's hear some more of that delicious piano. Let's hear some more. Delicious piano. Delicious piano. Another one of those connecting of the vamps sections, where we have a little bit of harmony happening. Harmonic interest. Here's the last one.

Give me some drums with that. So I'll put some drums onto that. There's that same part with drums, because there's a little Tom buildup. And I feel on the bass. They're all messed around. So they're like three minutes into the song and they're just like, woo, we get to have fun now.

Oh, no, they're partying. They're partying. I'm going to isolate that bass fill because that's another hook. Oh, he kind of drops out there too. That might have been a little. Well, Clam. Will Lee, I'm finding a couple clams in here. He'll be 50 bucks of clams.

It might have been intentional. If it happens more than once. I don't know. That's a different part. I don't think it's intentional. Well, I don't know why it's... He didn't break the song. Throwing salt on your name.

It didn't break anything. And I'll throw the vocals in there so you know what part we're in. Little tease of the vocals to come. Let me tell you something. We're not going to talk about that vocal just yet. I will literally start crying on this podcast. I will do it. I will do it.

I will do it and I will not. I will not. I will not feel shamed if I do it. I will not feel shame because it's too pretty. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about guitar. We got two guitar players here. One is Hamish Stewart, another average white band performer. He's also on Pickup the Pieces.

And we also have Phil Upchurch on the second guitar who also plays on Michael Jackson's working day and night. Nice. Here's the first of the two guitar parts. And the other guitar is doing this. So they're kind of playing off each other. By the way, I like those guitars, because it sounds like Nile and Bernard from Sheik.

Yeah, we've definitely got a Nile-ish influence. One of them is a little bit more rhythmic and the other one's just kind of finding a note and staying a little longer. Here's another section. I'll play them one at a time because it's fun to hear them separate. So rhythmic guy, I don't know which is which, Hamish or Phil, is doing this.

Probably Hamish, right? Because he did the pick-up-the-piece guitar. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-na-na. And while that's happening, the other guitar is doing this, and then I'll play them together, and you see how they blend. That's both of them together with some drums. And let's throw in some bass, and then get the piano. Sounds good.

So that is the underlying rhythm section before we get to the strings and the vocals, which where, I mean, I was going to say where the magic happens. We already have magic happening. Absolutely. So much magic happening. Let's listen to some strings. These are, I don't have names for who the performers are, but arranged by Arif Martin. And here is the intro.

Woo! Right? Epic. I mean, you could call the song there. Like, what is going on? Cinematic. Cinematic. You feel something?

It's too much. You get the, you're going to cry. I'm going to. Stop. You guys. Wait, play me some more strings. Pump it up in here a little bit. Give us some more strings, bro.

Here's another. This is happening in the first verse. This is what's happening under the vocal. I'll play the strings and I'll gradually. I already love it. Not that long like that on the record. It is. It is.

That's really happening. That nice swoop with that long legato. I did not. I did not hear that. I did not hear it either until I was going through. That's happening in the song, all these beautiful moments. It's like a cartwheel. It's like, what are we doing here?

It's like, how do you not, and people say, why is music expensive? Why is music? You got to pay for some bodies in that room, you know? Like, people are working. Yes. Like, I am such a fan of reminding people that people are working. Even when people say, oh, you know what, you guys, I wish that you guys could play the whole song. Yeah, we do too, but we would also like to see the musicians get paid.

Yeah. I don't even know their names, those string players. I was going to say that when you said that you don't even know their names, I was like, it's disappointing, but it also doesn't surprise me that nobody bothered to record. Like, who's play? I hear a violin, I hear a cello. Like, I feel like there's more than one type of string. There's a lot of strings going on.

But someone knows, but still, and if you know, go to the comments and let us know because we'd love to know. Like, we'd love to get these people there, they're due. Yes. The power of choosing to name or not. name means that these individuals may or may not get hired again. Their payment is clearly tied to it being a one-time session. They're alive. I hope they're alive so we can give them to their props. But it didn't make it to the album credits because Discogs, if you ever look at that,

you can actually see the actual album artwork and you can see, oh, this is what was printed and their names are not printed on it. So it's unfortunate because it's a huge part of what makes the song emotional because look at Danielle Smith over there. Oh, man, very emotional. And I just want to say Discogs is your friend. Yeah, it is. If you are a music fan immediately.

go to discogs and actually see the CD and the album covers. One, to catch a mood, okay? To catch a whole mood and to know just how deep it is to not only have all the musicians and the singers and everything together, but also there's a photographer or a graphic artist or whatever

who had, a graphic designer who had to get into the mood and to like try to convey what this thing was going to be. There's a version of the song that was only on the Japanese print. Talk about it. He got it. That's why I was always there because I was always DJ. For any listeners who don't know Discogs is a website, it's a crowdsourced website with pretty much every recording released of any music ever because it's crowdsourced.

So you have these wonderfully amateur photographs that someone took of their album cover. It's so great. It's so great. It's so charming. It is. But over time, we kind of have the data that's deeper that doesn't make it to Wikipedia. Yeah, it doesn't. I could live in these strings forever.

I really want to hear one more, but I know that we have to get to the vocals. And that's going to be a whole other journey. Let's take that journey, my friend. Let's go on that journey. Shall you listen to Shaka Khan? Yes. Start the song with the chorus. And she is belting what looks like at least two takes.

Every woman, it's all in me. By the way, there's one more me in there. It sounds like a double? She's doubling herself, and she's such a good singer. Her doubles are perfect. You don't hear anything that is different between them. But in that last note, what's interesting is she has three different notes. I'll play them separately and then together.

here's me and then she went back and she did this that's the one you really hear and then she went lower and did one more lower harmony Oh I can't stand it Right? Right it's too much I need to slow down It's too much

It's too much Here is that stack those three notes together And now you can hear it Now famously Shaka talks about how she was one of the first singers to do her own backing vocals and to actually sort of insist that she be the one to do them. Normally, you would have had other singers. And she came in and she wasn't happy with, she tells the story, I don't know what song it was on, but she wasn't happy with the vocalist they brought in. So she said, ah, let me just do it. And that's what they kept. But now let's hear

part B of the chorus, the answer section, which sounds like this. Anything you've all done, baby, I'll do it naturally. Yeah. And then she does another chorus, another harmony, and then we get some woes. Shall we hear some woes? Is that just her? It sounds like there's a man voice.

So the backing vocals are Chaka with Will Lee, the bass player, and Hamish Stewart, the guitar player. So I think you're right. I think we're hearing all of them in those low vocals. Yeah. Yeah. In the woes. There's a lot of woes in this song

I'm pro woes I'm pro woes All right Well let's listen to some more shock up I gotta hear some verse Because to me that first I can cast a spell Like it's so clean

It's such a clean So she goes from those big stacks And backing vocalists To just one single Undoubled For verse one Let's hear that I can cast a spell

Secrets you can't tell Makes a special brew Put fire inside of you Any time you feel danger or fear Instantly I can't do it I know

You're not going to be in the episode I literally am asking producers for Kleenex episode I'll tell you what I hear I hear influence And the reason that it makes me emotional honestly is because Shaka does not get the credit

that she is due I got to hear the verse two I can sense your knees like rain on the seeds. I just want to hear that isolated because ever since we chose this song and you chose this song, I wanted to hear that isolated.

Can we hear that verse? Thank you. I can sense your needs like rain onto the seeds. Here comes harmony. I can make a ride down to some good old-fashioned love. That's what I've got. Oh my gosh.

I can't do it with you guys. Cut these mics off. Cut the cameras off. We're a puddle. I can't. I can't. We're all devastated. she said I can make a rhyme

of confusion in your mind never understood that long I spent my whole childhood I didn't know what they said but you get it now I thought maybe lock a vision in your mind I thought she said I can bring you to your knees like praying onto the seas listen we didn't have the internet back then if you got that lyric wrong you didn't know what it said

I will I will clear it all up for you sir that's what she's saying I will make a poem up your chaos. And she's not even saying it to, sir. Because again, now I hear these lyrics. I'm like, she could be helping your daughter. She could be helping her partner.

All right, well, we have to hear the peak build right before that ending chorus that just goes on and on and on. So let's hear her build to it. This is the bridge into the last chorus. We're not done building. We do this modulation. That's the best part right there.

Yeah, now everybody knows that. Did she know she was going to do that before she did it? Let's just hear it by itself. That's a long note She goes low with it It's like a waterfall That is insane And I feel like that is the one part

When he was like I ain't touching that part I'm doing that exactly like her Because that's what else are you going to do Descend chromatically Into that final Final minute Can I just say this is the greatest outro

Because people forget This is not technically the chorus anymore We're into the outro The song Yeah But like they're just She's just hitting you Every single bar

Just every single bar Just pure clean notes from the queen herself. It's a modulation fake out, remember? Yes, it really does. Right? Because it goes up, but then it comes down again. You think it's going to go up here. I'll play the piano part and the vocals together.

It fakes you out all the way to the end. It's two minutes straight of this part, literally two minutes straight of just this. But then we're going to go up three half steps. We're here now. I guess we modulated. I guess we need a key. Nope. We're going to go right back down again.

It's two minutes of that. The last two minutes are just that all the way through the fade. The best two minutes. By the way, I say two minutes, that's because we have, we can't play it because we don't have time, but there is more after the fade. I'm sure there's more vocals, there's more strings, there's more piano.

There's so much good stuff. We got to move on. There's never enough shocka. Let's just sit there. My whole time growing up, I always thought of it as her singing it to a dude saying, like, I'm going to be that supportive woman. But really, you know, coming up. to it now after, you know, decades of being alive, I'm like, no, just kind of saying that I'm,

I'm there to support you no matter who you are. Yes, absolutely. I get that energy. I mean, I love the song so much. It was the original title of My Shine Bright. Really? Wow, that makes so much sense. It was originally going to be titled, she's every woman, a very personal history of black women in pop for a number of reasons that didn't go that way, and I love that it's called Shine Bright. Yes. But that's the energy. And plus, The combination of Shaka Khan doing it and then Whitney covering it. It's just such a classic black girl anthem. I love Whitney Houston.

Whitney Houston is a queen among singers. There is none higher. But Whitney Houston listen to this $40,000,865 trillion times you can hear it. When you really listen to Whitney's cover, she didn't change the arrangement that much. It's faithful. Shaka gets a credit actually in Whitney's cover that says arrangement by Shaka Khan. Oh, and she should. Whitney probably knew she had to because you know she didn't want to.

I thought that Sissy actually sang a little bit uncredited on the original I'm Every Woman. So there's a lot of back and forth on the internet, and one of the back and forth includes Shaka herself in an interview saying that both Sissy and Whitney, a young 14-year-old Whitney, are on the song. but then minutes later on a Facebook post, it's like a Guardian interview. What happened? And then a Facebook post later that same day, she goes on to say, oh, I misspoke. I think it was only Sissy.

Yeah. She said that Whitney was not on it. Right. It was sissy. That's right. Once Whitney decides she's going to sing a Shaka song, which, you know, like, I dare anybody to go up at karaoke

and sing a Michael Jackson song, sing a Stevie Wonder song. At the point you decide you're going to sing a Shaka Khan song, you've got to be Whitney levels of good, And I agree with you. I think she listened to it however many times that she said. Yes. And dialed it absolutely in.

Yes. And I also think just knowing sort of the energy of the women of that era, it was a super competitive scene. Okay. So people who were really good, let's just say Aretha Franklin, let's just say Whitney Houston, when there were songs that were really like that person's song, whether it was respect from Otis Redding, or whether it was I'm Every Woman from Shaka Khan, there was almost a competitive thing like,

oh, she'd think that her song? Yeah, no, no, no, you're onto something with us. You think that's her song? Is that what you think? Because I'll sing it. And we're going to see whose song it is. And that was always the energy. that I got from Whitney Houston's version of.

I'm every woman like, that song is too good. That song is too associated with Shaka Khan. And I say this with so much love and respect for Whitney Houston and Shaka Khan. Both versions are Hall of Fame versions. But I'm telling you, I hear Whitney trying to go note for note. And that is something that Whitney Houston does not do.

Part of what you're saying that's really resonating for me is because we're obviously, we're talking about two interpreters. Both Whitney Houston and Shaka Khan are performers and singers, but not necessarily songwriters. And what they own is the performance and what they own is the song. And this takes us back to the legacy of where cover versions come from. Because we can't forget that Little Richard and Elvis Presley, Big Mama Thornton.

The legacy of cover versions is white performers that take a song that was originally for a black artist and becoming the one that is known for that song. And the song itself is what performers, in the old days especially, that's all they had. Yes. Before the Beatles start writing, you know, Dylan, in the 60s you start writing your own songs, that becomes a choice. But for the pure performers, the ownership of the cover comes from whose song does better. Yes. Because to a lot of people, Whitney, this is Whitney's song.

It is. And it's, it's, even when I see, I was watching the video for Whitney Houston's version on the way here. And it's such a great video. Whitney is at the top of her game. She's in the bodyguard era. She's pregnant in the video. She looks, she's literally, she already usually glows, but she was glowing. And because she was, sometimes she was too thin, you know, but in this, she just looks fleshy and beautiful and amazing. And I see Shaka coming in in moments and beats.

Because she's in the video, too, you mean? Yeah, she is. She's in there. It's a great video. T-Bahs, all of, TLCs in there. TLC's in there. A lot of fun cameo Yes, it's so great

And Shaka is reduced to a cameo then But she does have She gets the shout out at the end And by the way, I thought that was actually Just a lyric in the song growing up I thought what was Shaka Khan Shaka Khan

Like I thought that was like a lyric from the song In fact the first time I ever heard the Shaka Khan version I expected to sing her own name At the end of the song Like this is like me like in my 20s or whatever But like Yeah, no seriously I love Whitney.

I thought that that, what do you want to call it? That respect was there. You're saying they're... I'm not... Oh, no, the respect from Whitney Houston, I think, is probably... She probably had as much respect for Shaka Khan as she had for any singer that she ever listened to. Totally. I mean, just, again, this is what I'm saying.

I hear influence. When I hear those isolated vocals, okay, when you hear Shaka singing, You can hear some of that, not just in Whitney Houston's cover of I'm Every Woman, but in Whitney Houston singing, period. Chaka said when she heard the Whitney version, she said, are you using my vocals? She said she thought maybe her backgrounds were still in the mix. And even if she didn't think it, she was going to say it. Whether or not it was, it was replicated if it wasn't the original. Yes, this is what I'm saying. No, and I think, I remember when the video came out, I hadn't really.

listened to it that much just on the album. But when the video came out, we were all listening to it. And I immediately thought to myself, even way back then, this sounds just like Shaka's version. Yeah. We brought it up to speed. We brought it up to where it was supposed to be in the era, but it's giving pound for pound very similar, if not almost exactly the same. An example that I have is, okay, so Stephanie Mills sings Home from the Wiz. And everybody tries to cover home. It's every black girl and every talent show sings home. You see Beyonce singing it in a talent show way back then when she was a kid.

Barbara Streisand sings Stephanie Mills' home. And that's why we have to call it Stephanie Mills' home. Because no one strays from the vocal arrangement of Stephanie Mills. They do not. And Whitney did not stray. And I just want to say for Whitney to not stray from, from someone else's vocal arrangement is saying something. That's the ultimate compliment.

Yes. Yes. But the irony of it is that in a way it's also a form of erasure. It is, though. Over Shaka's version. It is. Right. It's just the idea that black people or black women or music itself isn't like

ruthlessly competitive, that there isn't like a lot of ego involved in the creation of music. Yes. Ambition and driver, definitely in the mix. And you can hear it. And you can hear it. And I think you can hear it better in black music than in anything. Just a couple of things before we move on from the song I wanted to point out is we have a music video for Whitney Houston that we've all seen. It should be pointed out the original music video for this.

It's so cool. It's so cool and lo-fi in a fun way. It reminds me of the infamous Star Wars Christmas special in that like you get you. get this since they were like, oh, this is the future of special effects. But it's really just her superimposed five Shaka's representing every woman. And it may not seem like much now, but you've got to realize this is pre-MTV. It was. And the fact that this could be shown in club.

Shaka's video was so great. She has on the best outfits. So many good outfits. Right. At least five. At least five or six outfits. Each one, she's doing like an awkward dance. Like, what am I supposed to be doing?

What? Okay. This is a what? This is a video? What is this? She looks flawlessly. beautiful and amazing and just, oh, so luscious, right, in every version of herself.

And she really is being like every woman. Every woman. She's being every woman. I'm Every Woman was just the beginning of Shaka's superstar career. She kept making music with Rufus until they broke up in 1983. At the same time, she was on the grind releasing even more solo albums. We've got to take a moment to give some love to Clouds, one of my favorite songs from her second album,

which was called Naughty. It was an extremely important song of the development of dance music, particularly the genre known as garage as we've been talking about. Love clouds. It's got a distinctive sound. The 80s are a great time for Shaka.

You know, she's making waves on the R&B chart. She's got songs like, What's you're going to do for me? Ain't nobody, which deserves its own episode of one song, I think. And another one of my absolute favorites, I know you, I live you. Which, you know that?

Do you remember that one? Not really. I'll play it for you here. Throughout her career, Shaka's covered quite a few songs from her contemporaries, including Marvin Gay's What's Going On, which she recorded in 2002 and won a Grammy for. And of course, of course, there's Shaka's cover, A Princess song, I Feel for You from 1984. Get this, it was the first R&B song to feature a rap segment. That's crazy.

Melly Mel. Yeah, it was Melly Mellie Mell. Shaka Khan. Shaka Khan. Exactly. And by the way, there would be no me and Mariah go back like babies. with fast fires without, I feel for you. Yes, that rap was by Melly Mel and the famous harmonica solo by Stevie Wonder.

Yes, yes, yes. Again, I speak to Shaka Khan's influence on everything that has come after her. Oh, Prince was obsessed with Shaka Khan. Prince goes on to, like, obviously worship her. She didn't actually write, feel for you about for Shaka, though. She wrote it for Patrice Russian, who turned it down. Who turned it down? You love money on the table.

Trees. You'll forget me not. Right? One of my favorite songs. Number one is my favorite for Trees. Yes. Number one is such a great song. Love that song.

There's some heartbreaking stories of what could have or should have been. One of them, probably the most heartbreaking one, is that did you know, I just learned this in researching this episode, Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love started life as a duet with Chaka Khan. There exists somewhere in the world. Addicted to Love. A Robert Palmer and Shaka Khan. recording of Addicted to Love.

And they wiped her from the backing track. They wiped her from the tape. That makes it because you know what? My other favorite Robert Palmer's song is, I didn't mean to turn you on, which is an amazing Shirel song. Yeah. By Jimmy Javan and Jerry Lewis. So Robert Palmer was really just 50%.

Robert Palmer wanted to do the song with her. He brought her in. They recorded it. And some garbage happened at the record level. The record company executive MTV. something bad took place music industry dirtiness. And she's up to this day, you can tell it's like a heartbreaking thing that she wasn't on this song, especially because...

It's a big record. It was a big record and she was done dirty. Less drawn dirty, but interesting to think about an alternative universe where Dennis Edwards' 1984 Smash, don't look any further. Might have had Shaka on it had she not had a scheduling conflict. I could totally see that because there is a female vocal on Don't Look any Further. That's my song, too. It's now a Cina Gareth song.

And you know it's got that female part on it. Yeah, that would have been Chaka? It would have been Shaka on that song. She had a conflict. She couldn't make it. Whatever that means. And last but not least, and this is another one that's less dirty, so it's a happy ending for her friend. But Snaps, 1989 Smash, I got the power.

That song was originally they asked Shaka to do it. And she couldn't do it. So she gave it to her friend, Penny Ford. And if you notice, they asked Shaka. actually end up interpolating another Shaka Khan song, which is Some Love from 1978. So, yeah, there is the Don't Break My Heart part of I Got the Power. That's a Shaka interpolation. Interesting, Shaka, what could have beens?

We've talked about covers, and we've talked about a song she's covered, and songs of hers that have been covered. Let's talk a little bit about samples. There's Through the Fire from 1985, which was an Atlanta radio staple for most of my childhood. And that must have been the case of Chicago because Kanye famously sampled it for Through the Wire, a song that he recorded about, you know, his accident and the fact that he was having to rap through the wire. He sounds very different.

He literally did it in that song. It's incredible. He's incredible. You know what I'm saying? When a doctor told me I had a, um, I was going to have to have a plate of my chain. I said, dog, didn't you realize I'll never make it a man?

And, uh, in the music video of Kanye features the artwork of Shaka's album Epiphany, the best of Shaka Khan, Volume 1, where you can find, through the fire. Now here's what's interesting. Shaka's son convinced her to clear the sample for Kanye. Yeah, yeah. And then she hears it and she's very

upset because she thinks she sounds like a chipmull. She had no idea. It was going to be conyified. Exactly. It turns out in later interviews, she understands that speeding up the sample, slowing it down. That's just part of hip-hop culture. I mean, in my opinion, when I hear her say that, I feel like she's like begrudgingly

saying, yeah, I understand. I think she's still a little annoyed. They took her instrument. If you sound as good as she sounds, You may not want to hear that version. But I will say that that was a huge hit for Kanye back in the days. It was, yeah. Because it touched the nostalgia strings of the generation previous to hip-hop. It really just...

Man, that song is so... It's old school, but it was even old-school when it came out. You're right. You know what I mean? It really was one of... It was like a 70s throwback. A throwback ballad. Like, it just...

A quiet storm. It really was. It really was. And I did allude earlier to jazz being an important part of understanding this woman. Yes. This wonderful quote that I found from her, she goes, I'm only kissing the hem of the dress of the lady called jazz. Now, when I heard that, I was like, man, this really explains where she is coming from in so many ways.

Her delivery, her choice of repertoire, the fact that she's done a lot of jazz. She has an entire jazz record. Yes, she does. Do you have that one echoes of an era? Yeah, listen. Listen. Yeah. I just remember, I think she toured around that album too.

I know she toured around that album. And I remember she made very clear in the walk-up to the tour. I'm not singing any of my Rufus hits. I'm not singing any of my Shaka Khan songs. I'm singing only jazz. And I wasn't at the show, but I remember them talking about it, like on the radio the next day or something. And this was in Oakland, or in the Bay Area, I should say.

And people started booing. Yeah. And they started saying out, I'm every woman. You know, Hollywood, like singing what I paid for basically was the energy. What year was this? And roughly, the 80s. Yeah, Echoes of an era was 82. That's what Chick-Korea and Stanley Clark.

Yeah. It's all does original standards. It does. And she stood right there and said, we made it very clear. I'm not doing that. Would you go to Andre 3000's flute show and start booing and be like... You shouldn't? Mrs. Jackson!

No, but that's the energy. And so they said that she went right into My Funny Valentine. Her version of that is... I mean, the song by itself is... The lyrics are insane. and always will be there. It's a classic. It's a part of the Great American song

before a reason. But Shaka singing it. Yeah. She's an interpreter. Yeah, she is. She absolutely is. She's an interpreter. When I was kind of doing my homework on this,

that was sort of a key that helped unlock a lot of her entire career. Because she's not really a songwriter, and that's not, you know, to say anything negative. It's just like her chosen methodology for musicianship is to select repertoire. Yes. Find songs that she connects with, and then she inhabits them, and she transforms them, and she performs them. That is her artistic route. I think that interpreters get a bad rap.

And then on the flip side of that, it's so hard for music critics or social media superstars to rightly call women and black women songwriters when they are songwriters. It took so long for Mariah Carey to be identified in every article as a singer-songwriter. You're absolutely right. That's a great connection. Yes. Because that's the legacy. Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, Bill & Holiday are mostly not writing original material. No, they're not. And it's high art, though, when you can take the words that somebody else wrote.

Yeah. Look at that. Look at the music. Look at the arrangement. Imagine another arrangement, maybe. and then say, I feel strong enough about myself that I know that Ella Fitzgerald sang this song. I know Ella sang it, and everybody knows Ella Fitzgerald's version.

But you know what? Let's record that. Gladys Knight has a jazz album. I love it when people say, I'm going to take it on. I think the Ella connection is a real one, too. There's one song just to illustrate the jazz connection that I have to play for you. This song won a Grammy. This song is called Bebop Medley from 19.

1982, and it's insane. Basically, it won best arrangement for voices because it's bebop. She's harmonizing with herself, any of these crazy scat moments. She took that background and training and talent and put it into pop music and put it into funk and put it into on the radio. She did. Well, at this point, I think it's safe to say that there's no denying the greatness of Shaka Khan between her solo career and as the lead singer of Rufus.

She's won 10 Grammys, sold 70 million records and several of her singles an album. have gone gold and platinum. She was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023. So, Daniel, as we wrap up this episode, what do you believe is the legacy of Shaka Khan and I'm Every Woman? I think that I have been saying it throughout this whole amazing show. I think that you guys have been saying it throughout this whole amazing show. But the legacy is that everybody wants to sound like Shaka Khan.

I can't imagine a vocalist of any stripe, right, who wouldn't listen to Shaka Khan and say, damn! I want to sound like that. I want that kind of attention to detail. I want that type of excellence. I want that kind of reaching for the stars with every bar, with every note. It's like Shaka leaves no note untouched. Nothing is just like taken for granted.

Yeah, like, oh, yeah, ww, ww, w, w, w, nothing is that. Every note, you feel her touching and making special. And whenever you hear almost anyone that has recorded music, either during or after, Shaka Khan's heyday, is in one way, or another trying to be Shaka Khan. I'm hearing all that too through your ears and sort of being in your book, like I'm reading it now. So I'm like thinking about all these women.

And I'm hearing the Whitney just the way you did in the way you did in that moment that you did. And then that sort of flows us into, into Mariah and into Beyonce. All of these women that are in this, whatever you call the word cloud of pop into R&B with gospel influence and funk and all. Yes. They're all coming from a Shaka legacy. Or they're all certainly connected in some ways to Shaka's legacy.

Even if it is in vocalists and they don't acknowledge it or even know it, even if it's just in their dreams, they listen to it in their sleep while they were in the bagseat while their mom and dad were playing it on the car radio. Like it's in people. Yeah, man, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, I mean, it clearly is a hall of fame, um, legacy. And this is coming from somebody who's on the committee. The year that is coming up. It's the first year that I've been on the committee. What an honor. How great. Is it fun? It feels fun.

Oh, it's work. It's a huge. What an honor. It's a huge honor, honestly. So when I say that her legacy is a Hall of Fame legacy, I mean it literally, and I mean it also, but metaphorically. Like, what halls of fame just mean in general? Like, you are the best of the absolute best. and that's where Shaka is.

Is she on your Mount Rushmore along with, I heard you say Beyonce was up there in another interview. Yes, Beyonce is definitely up there. I mean, I tent, but my big three is definitely going to be Janet Mariah. I love that. And Whitney Houston. Okay. Absolutely.

But Shaka's right there. Well, okay. So since we're talking, Rushmore's, I have a controversial, put you on the spot question. Oh, let's go. Shaka or Petty? Shaka. You heard it here first

That wasn't that hard You heard of quick answer No and I love I love a quick answer No I love I do I have so much love and respect For Patty LaBelle I do

And I love the bluebells We can take it all the way back To the girl group But I'm going to have to go on ahead And choose Shaka Khan Listen we only do these things People because they're fun to do I grew up

I'm one of six Okay I have four sisters Okay The Black woman of my family Where they were always Having this debate And I just wanted to see

Where you fell along those lines. I mean, I will sing if only knew right now. I think she's Patty for life. I think she's Patty. But, you know, we're not putting people together. We're just getting it. You don't want it.

You want it on flute. I do want to ask real quick, because Shaka did, of course, do that interview where I think it was about the time that her relationship with Mary Jay is quite complicated. You know, Mary Jay famously covered Sweet Thing. And she felt like Mary sounded flat. And I feel like the young internet came for Shaka, which is insane to me. They're like, She ain't flat, you just mad at her version of Sweet Thing did more.

I'm like not part of that camp. But she did also do that interview where she talked about the Rolling Stone top, I think it was... Are you going to say the quote that I think you're going to say? What's the quote? The same quote about Mary. Well, maybe. Okay. They'd ranked like I think Mariah Carey number five.

They had put a couple of singers above her, including Mary. and she was just like, oh, this is crazy. This is insane. Did you happen across that interview? Did you ever hear me? I heard about it. I can tell you exactly what she said. She goes, she's referring to the voters.

They are blind as a motherfucking bat. They need hearing aids, Khan explained, referring to the Rolling Stone critics. They must be the children of Helen Keller. Because that's rude. That's a little rude. That's a little rude. I think she eventually walked it back a little bit. She apologized because she said like, you know, I'm friends with.

of those people, including Mary. So I always found that relationship to be really easy. No, I didn't find it rude what she said about anybody except for Helen Keller. That's a little bit much. You're worried about the Helen Keller thing. I am more, yes. Pushing it a little bit. That's, yeah.

No, I just feel like comparing between errors is. It's tough. It's tough. Like I said, ego's involved. This is a lot of work and creativity and thought and imagination and all that kind of stuff. So if someone remakes your song, yeah, you're going to be listening. to that hard. You're going to be listening for anything that sounds remotely off or even just different. And also, let's just be honest, getting older is not for the week. Okay, so as we get

older, even sometimes your influence is hard to witness because it says to you, my heyday is not here. My time's in the rear view, me. Yes. And so my thought is, Shaka can say what she wants to say. And Mary J. Blige is going to be absolutely fine. Her version is stellar. I like the version of sweet thing. I actually thought it brought a level of

gravitas, is not the word? But like that was on what's the 4-1-1? Which was the first album that I ever Slow Dancing and was able to get a kiss from. I have a special place. Oh, more. More. Hey, no, this is... It's not like they're mic to funnels around here.

Before we let you go. We want to play a game with you. It's called What's One Song? And here are the rules. Okay. We'll give you a scenario and you give us one song that this scenario would apply to. And we'll want you to come up with that answer as quick as possible. I don't think that'll be a problem because you seem to answer questions pretty quickly.

Oh, man. I feel like I'm getting to A plus right now. No, you're telling it. All right. So what's one song you can't get out of your head right now? Honestly, Lionel Richie, Jesus's Love. What's one song that you could listen to every day for the rest of your life? That song would be 1973's number one pop hit, Midnight Train to Georgia for the Platts night.

I'm never going to straight. It is a perfect record. I don't say that about that many records. There's not one weak element on that record. Oh, now I want to ask you, okay, but you have to lose one song off the album. What song is it? Off what album? Off that album.

I don't even listen to that album. All I listen to is Midnight Train to Georgia. He just flipped the 45. What's your favorite one? Me? Off that album. I'll ask the questions, man. All right.

I know that I'm, let me, look. Real quick. This has been a real blazing episode. So many things have happened to this episode. It's never happened before. Right here. You can come back anytime. Right here.

What's one song you listened to a ton when you wrote Shine Bright? And you know what's wild is that I don't even write about. her that much in Shine Bright. I have written about her at length other places. But it's Charday, and it's When am I going to make a living? Ooh.

Nice. I love Shardust. I'm a big fan of that answer. That's great. Shade, listen, we have a couple of White Well episodes of like, can we ever do that? And Shade, it's absolutely 100% one of them.

Number one on my list, absolutely. Yeah, she's the queen. She got me through too many things over the decade. War of the Heart. A great song, too. Heart is heartbreaking. It's too much.

Too much. Even Soldier of Love, man. You talk about... I was late to that one. Let me tell you something. If you do stems for Soldier of Love... We'll bring you back for that one. Oh, man.

We will bring you back. In any case, yeah, definitely... But when am I going to make a living is just... It's about just that. It's about ambition, which I love to hear in music. I love to hear in music from women. I love to hear in music from black women. And Chadee was so young.

when she co-wrote and recorded that. And it has everything in it that if you hear that song at 19, 20, 20, 21 years old, it will get you through your life. It will get you through your life. Can I give you two more? Yes, please. This is a fun game. I think Maureen is underrated.

Yes, Maureen is good. And I love. And I'm going to miss you, girl. Listen, any song with a girl's name as the title wins. Yes. I totally, I said that on a previous episode. Yeah, just name the song, Brooke. You know, like, you're halfway home.

That's what I'm saying, Peggy Sue. Let's go. All right, all right. Oh, my God. We've got to do that shot of an episode. Okay. What's one song that you love to sing at karaoke? I've never done a different song.

Only mid-19 to Georgia? Let me... I'm not even going to mess with Gladys like that. No, it's... I will survive. Glory Gaynor. Oh, there you go. It never changes.

It never changes. Good choice. Come on. And, by the way, everybody in karaoke is, like, jamming along with you. Yes. That's mine. But you weren't going to ask me the one. makes me cry? No, no, no, that's coming. Okay. I've been waiting on that one. That one's coming

because I have my Kleenex. Well, let's ask you now, what is one song that makes you cry? Every single time, Carol King Way Over Yonder. I will cry thinking about it. Way over Yard is a place. We did not know that song coming in. So thank you for playing. Thank you for making us cry in the future. thanks to this new song in my repertoire of crying songs. I'm going to get in my part and just blast it. You're my way over yonder? Yeah. Oh, yeah, you have to.

You'll be sad, though. You'll be happy, sad, though. You'll be happy sad. I like to be happy sad. That's the good kind of sad. Yes. I like to be unhappy, lethal sometimes. I get that from Cocto Twins and the Pretender's song back on the chain gang.

That song makes me ball. Does it? It destroys me. Because it's about her two bandmates who died. I never knew that. Is this brass in pocket? It's, I mean, same band, but powers that be he and force us to live like we do. That last note, we go from minor to major, making us pop.

That kills me, and I might start crying right now. So stop. Okay, I'll stop. I love that music has this power, though. It does. Fun fact, I'm dead inside. Wait, music doesn't make you cry. Are you serious?

Nothing makes you cry? Nothing makes you cry. Nothing makes me cry. What? Let's try to make him cry. I'm ready. Next episode, I will cry. But it'll be crocodile.

Check this out. What's one song? We have to break down on a future episode of one song. Okay, because I'm just very into stems right now, so I'm just trying to think what's... See, this one I can't answer quick enough, but I tell you what it should be. I want it to be the Jackson 5. I want you back. Daniel Smith, thank you so much for playing this game and for joining us.

Where can people find you? We want to find you. We want to find you. Oh. The best thing that you can ever do is to buy and read and talk about my book, Shine Bright. A very personal history of Black Women in Pop. It is in paperback. It's a beautiful purple color in paperback, right?

I brought a copy you decided for me. Yes, absolutely. I have a newsletter called Shine Bright H.Q. You can find me on Substack. And all over social media, I'm the same nickname, Danimo, which is from high school. D-A-N-A-M-O And there I am I hope to see you out there

Thank you so much It was such a pleasure Of such an honor Having you on the show Oh, I had so much fun If you can't tell I had the most fun Thank you for having me

We went through all the emotions together All of them As always You can find us on Instagram and TikTok You can find me on Instagram At Diallo, D-I-A-L-O And on TikTok at Diallo At Dialla Rittle

And you can find me on Instagram At Luxi-X-U-X-R-Y And on TikTok at Luxor You can also watch full episodes of One Song on YouTube now. Just search One Song Podcast. We'd love it if you'd like and subscribe. Speaking of which, if you've made it this far, I think it means you like this podcast. So please don't forget to give us five stars, leave a review, and share it with someone you think would also like the show because it really helps keep it going. Luxury, help me in this thing. I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist, luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And this is one song. We'll see you next time.