Chaka Khan - What Cha' Gonna Do For Me

Chaka Khan’s third solo album, from 1981, shows her at her absolute finest, supported by Arif Mardin’s super-slick and deeply-groovy production.

Soul tunes from that era don’t come any bigger or badder than the title track.

I’m not sure that A Night In Tunisia was screaming out for a eighties soul-dance re-interpretation, but Dizzy Gillespie himself plays on it, so it can’t be too bad.

Her picture on the cover is (I’m guessing) airbrushed to the max, making it look like it’s had an awful 2025 AI enhancement.

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Rufus featuring Chaka Khan - Rags To Rufus

Rufus were a white funk-rock-pop band who managed to score one of the greatest black soul vocalists of our age. Essentially, this album marks the point where Rufus ceased to be a band who had a great singer and became the band of the great singer. Quite a few original members left as part of the corporate restructuring after this album came out.

You wonder if the 20 year-old Khan hadn't become a bit of an insufferable cunt by this time. She was in the studio on different days to the rest of the band and she had the self-assuredness to reject a song Stevie Wonder had written especially for her. She did, however, have the good sense to accept Tell Me Something Good. To be fair, that isn't even the best tune on the album (Ashford & Simpson's Ain't Nothin' But A Maybe picks up that honour.)

It's one of my favourite Rufus albums. It's a knackered US issue I picked up for a dollar in a junk shop in Ovingham.

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