I Feel for You – Chaka Khan (1984)

October 3, 2025

From 1973-83, it would be impossible to describe Chaka Khan’s creative output as anything but prolific. As the lead vocalist for the funk band, Rufus, Khan released a whopping 11 albums over the course of a decade; and as a solo artist, she released an additional five records before finally deciding to leave the band that had put her on the map. So after years of being one of the preeminent faces of funk and R&B music, Khan felt ready to expand her range (and her audience) and really make a push to become a bonafide pop star.

Chaka Khan with Rufus

Now if someone wants to expand their audience and become a pop sensation – there’s really no better place to start than with Prince. So Khan decided that her sixth studio album as a solo artist would be called I Feel for You, and the lead single would be a cover of Prince’s 1979 song of the same name. And to add to the pop royalty that she’d be using as inspiration for her next record – Khan would rely on the songwriting talent of acts such as a Burt Bacharach, Gary Wright, and Michael Sembello; and would bring in some of the best studio musicians on the planet with the members of Toto. She also made sure that the title track would become the album’s biggest hit by featuring hip-hop legend Grandmaster Melle Mel (of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five), as well as a cameo from Stevie Wonder on the harmonica.

On top of bringing in a plethora of songwriting and musical talent, Khan’s other shrewd choice was to move away from dated orchestral disco and earlier iterations of funk. Instead, she opted to embrace the synth-based, high-tech brand of funk that had been inspired by the work of Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra, utilized with great success by artists like Rick James, and taken to the next level by Prince with his signature Minneapolis sound. She also stuck to the pop music playbook of featuring a heavy dosage of love songs (many of which were covers) and including a couple ballads that really showed off her incredible voice and gave fans of her earlier work something that sounded more familiar. All of these decisions, along with her impeccable vocal talent, would pay off in a big way – with the record peaking at #14 on the Billboard 200, becoming her best selling album to date, and featuring a hit single with the title track (which would reach #1 in the UK and #3 in the US).

Chaka goes solo

The genius of Chaka Khan was on full display with her headfirst dive into 80s pop music on I Feel for You. She recognized the fact that the 1970s had come and gone, disco was dead, hip-hop and electronic music were now in vogue, and the surest way to make a hit was to include heavy doses of synthesizers and drum machines. Despite the fact that she cannot get credit as being a pioneer in this shift – given that she took the baton from many of the innovators (none more so than Prince) – she saw the writing on the wall and decided to embrace the future instead of clinging desperately to the past. And it cannot be overstated that her ability to push pop music forward would have ripples throughout the decades to come – no more clearly than when Kanye West would sample “Through the Fire” on his debut solo single, “Through the Wire,” which would peak at #15 on the US pop chart and help propel The College Dropout to #2 on the Billboard 200. Khan’s elite vocal talent and name recognition was the perfect fit for the newly emerging hybrid of pop, funk, R&B, and electronic music – and I Feel for You was undoubtedly the moment she became an international star.