Nile Rodgers goes through life following crazy dreams.
The 62-year-old music legend has worked with some of the industry’s biggest names, including Pharrell Williams, Kylie Minogue and Madonna. He is also the mastermind behind dance group Chic, which is releasing its first album in two decades called It’s About Time. While many might think a new record is a strange idea after all this time, it makes perfect sense to Nile.
“As with most things in my life I follow a sort of crazy dream and the crazy dream for me feels like it’s working,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “To think that I’d have a record that has Elton John singing on it and Michael McDonald singing on it, it seems so wacky to a normal person, but if you look at any other Chic record we’ve had Luther Vandross, the Brecker Brothers. It’s always been people like that, people I have massive amounts of respect for, but usually who are in my immediate circle of friends.”
Nile is particularly proud of the album considering he spent a long time feeling like his style of music didn’t have a place in the modern music business any more. For him dance music was becoming too electronic, but thankfully his collaboration with Daft Punk on their smash hit Get Lucky changed his opinion.
“Daft Punk proved that you could do an organic dance record and it would still be considered dance music,” he explained. “I thought, ‘Maybe I can get away with doing an organic dance record and maybe Chic is the band that can do it.’ That was really intensive for me.”
While many artists are queuing up to tap into Nile’s musical mind, he admits he learns a lot from them too.
“The musicians I choose to work with on a daily basis always have something to add to my life artistically, because of whom I choose to have in my immediate circle,” he said. “I think at the end of the day that is probably going to be my legacy.”
