Chaka Khan

Yvette Marie Stevens (born March 23, 1953), better known by her stage name Chaka Khan, is an American singer. Her career has spanned more than five decades, beginning in the 1970s as the lead vocalist of the funk band Rufus. Known as the "Queen of Funk", Khan was the first R&B artist to have a crossover hit featuring a rapper, with "I Feel for You" in 1984. Khan has won ten Grammy Awards. With Rufus, she achieved four gold singles, four gold albums, and two platinum albums. In the course of her solo career, Khan achieved three gold singles, three gold albums, and one platinum album with I Feel for You. Her collaboration with Steve Winwood produced a number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1986, '"Higher Love". She has also worked with Ry Cooder, Robert Palmer, Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Guru, Chicago, Gladys Knight, De La Soul, Mary J. Blige and Ariana Grande. In December 2016, Billboard magazine ranked her as the 65th most successful dance club artist of all time. She was ranked at No. 17 in VH1's original list of the 100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll. Khan has been nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame three times as a solo artist and four times as a member of Rufus featuring Chaka Khan; the first time in 2012 as a member of Rufus. In 2023, Khan was picked as an inductee in the Musical Excellence category. Early life Yvette Marie Stevens was born on March 23, 1953, into an artistic, bohemian household in Chicago, Illinois. The eldest of five children born to Charles Stevens and Sandra Coleman, she has described her father as a beatnik and her mother as "able to do anything". She was raised in the Hyde Park area, "an island in the middle of the madness" of Chicago's rough South Side housing projects. Her sister Yvonne later became a successful musician in her own right, under the name Taka Boom. Her only brother, Mark, who formed the funk group Jamaica Boys and was a member of Aurra, also became a successful musician. She has two other sisters, Zaheva Stevens and Tammy McCrary. Khan was raised as a Catholic. She attended the elementary school of Saint Thomas the Apostle Church in Hyde Park. She attributed her love of music to her grandmother, who introduced her to jazz as a child. Khan became a fan of rhythm and blues music as a preteen and at eleven formed a girl group, the Crystalettes, which included her sister Taka.