I Feel For You: The Prince Song That Gave Chaka Khan A Global Mega-Hit

Later that spring, with sessions for the Prince album taking place in Alpha Studios, in Burbank, California, Prince fleshed his bare-bones demo out with handclaps, new-wave synths and a four-to-the-floor beat that pinned the song’s groove in place. “He already had everything in his head,” studio engineer Gary Brant told Per Nelsen, for the book Dance Music Sex Romance: Prince: The First Decade. “He knew where the parts were going so it was just basically getting it onto tape.” While lying on a blanket placed beneath a piano, Prince recorded his vocals by singing into a mic suspended above him; by the time he came back up, he had in his hands a taut post-disco classic demanding an audience.

Chaka Khan’s version: “Let’s keep that. That’s very interesting”

Though not picked for single release, I Feel For You caught the ear of fans and musicians alike. While Prince perfected the “Minneapolis sound” on his 1982 album, 1999, The Pointer Sisters added a smoothly seductive version of I Feel For You to their So Excited! album of the same year, while Rebbie Jackson, the eldest of the Jackson siblings, would record her own take two years later, for her debut album, Centipede. Yet it was Chaka Khan who truly claimed the song for her own, when she made it the title track of her fifth solo album, issued on 1 October 1984.

Prince had been a fan of Khan since the early 70s, when she broke through with Chicago funk band Rufus – and, as he developed into one of the most influential musicians of the 80s, the respect became mutual. So when Khan, who’d established herself as a solo artist with the anthemic I’m Every Woman, in 1978, was looking for another pop hit in waiting, she turned to a song that had spoken to her from the moment she’d first heard it.

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Noting that she can “sing that kind of stuff in my sleep”, the versatile Khan picked I Feel For You because, as she put it in the book I Got Thunder: Black Women Songwriters And Their Craft, “I’ve been careful to sing songs written by artists whom I have a deep respect and deep admiration for, so that when I come to their songs it falls together in the most natural way.”

Where Prince’s original version of the song had been a one-man-band effort, Khan’s cover was put together by a small ensemble led by Reggie Griffin, of 70s funk outfit Manchild. With Steve Ferrone on drums, and four musicians – including Griffin – on keyboards and synths alone, the group worked up a densely layered patchwork of samples, live vocals and electro-funk riffs that extended the song from Prince’s original three-and-a-half-minute running time.

With the Purple Rain project demanding Prince’s full attention, Motown legend Stevie Wonder guested on the track, adding his distinctive chromatic harmonica throughout, while Grandmaster Flash collaborator Melle Mel contributed a rap that was placed at the start, paving the way for Khan’s entry. His quoteworthy stutter came about by chance when, during the mixing stage, producer Arif Mardin accidentally hit the recording console’s Repeat function. “We said, ‘Let’s keep that. That’s very interesting,’” Mardin later told NPR.

The legacy: “Pay back some dues and have a great time”

Released in August 1984 as the lead single from Khan’s album of the same name, the 7” edit of I Feel For You went to No.3 on the US Billboard Hot 100, nestling just below Prince’s own Purple Rain single. Topping the US dance and R&B charts, and also hitting No.1 in the UK, Khan’s version of the song – promoted with a music video which nudged it further towards the emerging hip-hop market, courtesy of appearances from Adolfo “Shabba Doo” Quiñones and Michael “Boogaloo Shrimp” Chambers, lead dancers in the “breaksploitation” flick Breakin’ – only resulted in more accolades being thrown at Prince following the release of the Purple Rain movie.

Among the three Grammys that he picked up at the 1985 awards ceremony, Best Rhythm And Blues Song came Prince way, thanks to his songwriter’s credit on I Feel For You. Adding it to a list of honours that included American Music Awards, BRIT Awards and even an Oscar for his work on Purple Rain, Prince never forgot how Khan’s recording of the song helped to further boost his own profile at the time he reached escape velocity.

Fourteen years later, and with Khan having lain dormant throughout much of the 90s, Prince sought to return the favour, signing her to his NPG Records label and co-producing her 1998 album, Come 2 My House. “One of the pleasures of my life is being able to work with some of my musical heroes,” he told Guitar World magazine. Khan had long been an inspiration; now he was, he said, keen to “pay back some dues and have a great time”.

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