May 21, 2024

Nile Rodgers received the Polar Music Prize on May 21, 2024. The ceremony and banquet celebrated his long lasting career with hits such as ”We are family”, "I'm coming out" and ”Everybody dance” performed by Kayo, Gladys del Pilar, Sharon Dyall and Janice, ”Let’s dance” by Moonica Mac, ”Material girl” by Peg Parnevik and ”Spacer” by Augustine. The banquet opened with a Mash up dance show with Rodger’s greatest hits from Chic, Avicii and Daft Punk.

Nile Rodgers was born September 19, 1952 in New York. He clearly possessed exceptional musical talent early on.

The young Nile spent his childhood back and forth between Los Angeles and New York, brought up mainly by his young mother Beverly, and his both grandmothers. He got musical inspiration from different parts of his family. His grandmother made him listen to Elvis Presley, his biological father was a drummer, he himself brought Nancy Wilson and Billie Holiday to his strict catholic schools for his classmates to listen to.

During the 60s in his teens, he listened to contemporary artists such as The Temptations, The Doors and The Beatles he explains in his autobiography ”Le Freak” from 2010.

His real father Nile Rodgers Sr was a drummer and percussionist, specialized in Afro-Cuban beats. Rodgers Sr was not always present in his son's life, but he taught him music, besides everything young Nile got to learn in school thanks to a solid musical learning program.

He touched his first guitar as a teenager in the mid sixties, it belonged to his grandmothers boyfriend Dan. He also played in school orchestras and learnt how to handle several instruments. When acquainted with the guitar, he used his knowledge to learn by himself – and he had found his instrument.

The young Nile left home at a very early age and moved into a community living, and joined the Black Panthers for a while.

He emerged himself in the musical communities in New York, especially in Greenwich Village playing with jazz-fusion bands. He studied guitar with Maestro Julio Pool, Ted Dunbar and Billy Taylor.

Thanks to jazz and classical training he started to substitute for other musicians and doing TV and radio commercials, recording sessions, gig playing backup band on label New York City led by EW Farell whom he had worked with at the Van Nuys airport while living in LA.

At the age of 19 he stumbled upon a band audition for the TV show Sesame Street. He was hired and toured the US.

At the same time he auditioned and got hired for the in-house band at the prestigious Apollo Theater in Harlem where he played alongside the likes of Aretha Franklin and Funkadelic.

He did his first show ever at the Apollo with Screamin' Jay Hawkins – who almost literally scared him to death.

At this time he could truly call himself a professional musician.

We are family

Rodgers and Edwards begun producing and writing for other artists than Chic, still always searching for what they called "a song's DHM – Deep Hidden Meaning."

Rodgers had heard a choral passage in a song by the band The Children of God at Woodstock in 1969, a passage he’d since that day wanted to place in a song, and that song ended up being ”We are family” written for a sibling vocal group: Sister Sledge. The song was a massive hit, along with ”He’s the greatest dancer”, ”Thinking of you” and many more. 

Rodgers himself claims that “We are family" today represents one fourth of his copyright revenues.

The star producer

From Let's dance and onwards, offers from others flooded in, as Rodgers scored further hits: INXS' "Original Sin," Duran Duran's "The Reflex" and "Notorious," Mick Jagger's "She's the Boss," Jeff Beck's "Flash," the B-52's' "Cosmic Thing," and the Vaughan Brothers' "Family Style," among many others.

Additionally, Rodgers found time during this hectic period to issue a pair of solo albums, 1983's Adventures in the Land of the Good Groove and 1985's B-Movie Matinee, and scored films such as Coming to America, Earth Girls Are Easy, and Beverly Hills Cop III.

Collaborations he often highlights himself are the ones with Duran Duran and INXS where the merge of 80s art rock, new wave and Rodger's specific sounds and musical experiences from the previous decade always ended up on the charts.

New generations

Rodgers was as active as ever during the 2010s. At the beginning of the decade, he and Rhino France compiled the excellent four-disc box set The Chic Organization Box Set, Vol. 1: Savoir Faire. Despite being diagnosed with prostate cancer the same year, Rodgers kept moving as much as he could.

To honour the tremendous influence he's had on dance music he was invited to work with Daft Punk on the Grammy-winning Random Access Memories, including "Get Lucky," a number one pop hit in dozens of territories that made a new generation discover his genius.

Shortly after the song's release, he announced that his doctor had given him a secondary "all clear" regarding cancer.

Both Nile Rodger's older tunes and composer and producer skills are still highly attractive to a new generation of artists, from Pitbull to Beyoncé. Rodger's co-wrote "Cuff it" for the Renaisance album released in 2022.