Chaka Khan and Prince shared a deep mutual respect when it came to their music, so it only made sense that Khan was one of the featured headliners (alongside Stevie Wonder and Christina Aguilera) at a tribute concert to the Purple One in St. Paul on Thursday.
In a interview with Billboard, Khan revealed that his Purpleness was a big fan of her music and even had her poster on his wall before he knew her personally.
She also revealed the lengths to which he went to meet her, which involved him impersonating another legendary musician. Apparently, both Prince and Khan were recording in San Francisco, so he called her at her hotel pretending to be her good friend, Sly Stone.
“I was completely fooled,” Khan said. “He said ‘this is Sly, I’m down at Electric Ladyland.’ ‘OK, I’ll be right down!’ And that’s how he got me down to the studio. I get there and there’s nobody there except for one little guy in this room with a guitar. And I said ‘Do you know where Sly is?’ He said to me, ‘Hi, I’m Prince, I called you.’ I was very pissed. And that’s how we met.”
Prince’s tenacity paid off however, because he and Khan not only went on to have a beautiful friendship, but they also made the album Come 2 My House together.
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Write to Cady Lang at cady.lang@timemagazine.com