From Madonna (“Like a Virgin”) to David Bowie (“Let’s Dance”), Diana Ross (“diana”) to Sister Sledge (“We Are Family”), Rodgers has worked with countless acts on their chart-topping music — most recently with Daft Punk, Sam Smith and Avicii. The disco-era success of his own group, CHIC, can still be felt today — its productions are consistently sampled in modern music.
Nile Rodgers
Sevyn Streeter
Deborah Cox
V. Bozeman
Kathy Sledge
Kelly Price
“To have true R&B music, you have to have both elements: the rhythm and the blues. If it’s lacking one, you don’t have R&B. I think when you compare it to any other genre, just like they have their own unique qualities, R&B does too [which is often imitated]. Even though you hear the elements of R&B music in just about everything — you can go to some country artists now and hear that influence — there is only one R&B. It’s an amazing genre of music, and if it wasn’t viable, you wouldn’t have pretty much every other genre borrowing from it.”
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