Who is Chaka Khan? Meet this week's Pitch Battle guest judge
Chaka Khan has her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame – but will she be able to spot fresh talent?
New shiny-floor TV series Pitch Battle aims to do for singing what Strictly did for dancing – but who’ll be making dreams come true in the judges' chairs?
Name: Chaka Khan
Twitter: @chakakhan
Best known for: Rightly entitled the ‘Queen of Funk’, Chaka Khan is one of the world’s best-known soul divas. Her songs are loved globally, and she’s won 10 Grammys and sold an estimated 70 million records, all thanks to a number of hits such as Ain’t Nobody, which the Pitch Battle groups will sing as their final battle song.
Bio: Chaka was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was the oldest of five. In 1972, whilst in the midst of the Chicago music scene she joined a new group called Rufus. The next year they signed to ABC records and collaborated with Stevie Wonder for Tell Me Something Good, followed by You Got The Love which brought them instant fame.
At the end of the 70’s Chaka Khan began her solo career and released disco hit I’m Every Woman; in the early 80s she continued to release albums and become more and more popular. Her last song with Rufus was Ain’t Nobody before the band split up and Chaka continued to go it alone.
From the mid-80s to the mid-90s Chaka was unstoppable, and her success grew even more with a number of platinum selling albums as well as Grammy winning collaborations, such as her work with Ray Charles and Quincy Jones for I’ll Be Good To You.
Since then she’s gone on tour with Prince, duetted with Mary J Blige and appeared on Broadway in The Color Purple. In 2011 she was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Not bad, right?
There’s no arguing that Chaka has had a huge career, but how will she do as a judge? We can’t wait to see how the Queen of Funk's expertise translates on Pitch Battle this week.
Pitch Battle continues on Saturday night at 7:30pm on BBC1
