Nile Rodgers in Concert

You may not know the name Nile Rodgers, but you certainly know his music. One of the architects of funk and disco, Rodgers is a singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer who crafted some of the most iconic songs of the last 40 years — dance-floor classics by Diana Ross, David Bowie, Duran Duran, INXS, Madonna, Lady Gaga, and the B-52s. 

His own band, Chic, recorded the hit single “Good Times” in 1979, which provided the bassline for the first mainstream hip-hop hit, Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight,” as well as Queen’s smash “Another One Bites the Dust” and, decades later, Daft Punk’s breakout single “Around the World.” 

In 2014, Rodgers won three Grammys for his contribution to Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, which spawned the platinum single “Get Lucky.” All told, the recordings he’s contributed to have sold more than 500 million albums and 75 million singles worldwide. It’s a pop-music legacy so dizzying that even the experts have a hard time summarizing it. In 2014, Rolling Stone wrote, “the full scope of Nile Rodgers’ career is hard to fathom.” 

Rodgers was born into the bohemian underground of Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 1952. He never knew much about his father other than that he was a traveling musician who died young. His mother remarried a doctor with connections to New York’s avant-garde art scene, and by the time he was a teenager Rodgers was already familiar with drugs and alcohol. 

Music kept him on a professional path, and he teamed up with Bernard Edwards and formed Chic in 1977. The band’s first two albums spawned several landmarks of disco-funk, bringing them deeper into the world of soul, R&B, funk, and disco. Through the 1980s and ‘90s, Chic toured with a who’s-who of those styles while Rodgers applied his prescient taste and considerable talents to pop-music production of every variety. After a near-death episode in 1994, he quit drugs and alcohol and watched his career achieve even greater heights. 

Rodgers’ recent team-ups with Daft Punk, Pharrell Williams, and Lady Gaga have kept him at the forefront of popular music — even if he stays mostly in the background. In 2018, he brought a newly revamped Chic to Coachella, complete with band uniforms, backup singers, and choreographed dance moves, connecting to a whole new generation of fans. His live shows span the entirety of his five-decade-long career, a sweat-drenched, crowd-pleasing testament to one of pop’s most towering talents.