Sia Pitched Chaka Khan a Dance Album Called Chakzilla

Chaka Khan releases Chakzilla on Friday 18 September. It is her first album since Hello Happiness in 2019, it runs to 10 songs, and it exists because Sia asked a simple question: could she write a dance album for the funk legend?

The answer is a record co-written with Sia, produced by Greg Kurstin and built for the dancefloor. Snoop Dogg, Sia and Lenny Kravitz all appear as guests. Khan says there is not a single slow jam on it.

How Sia Talked Chaka Khan Into a Dance Record

The partnership goes back a few years. Khan and Sia sang together on stage when Khan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023, and they collaborated on Sia’s song Immortal Queen in 2024, according to WBEZ Chicago.

Then Sia made her pitch. Khan told WBEZ she responded that Sia would have to deliver something that popped, and that Sia did exactly that. Khan calls Sia her goddaughter and has praised her songwriting in unusually blunt terms on stage.

The working process was quick. Sia and Kurstin sent ideas, and Khan told WBEZ that the lyrics felt as though she had written them herself. When she asked Sia how she had managed it, Sia said she had been watching and listening to Khan since she was a baby.

Sia has been equally warm in public. In comments carried by WBLS, she described working with Khan as a long-held dream and praised her voice as one of the most distinctive in music.

Ten Songs and No Slow Jams

The album runs to 10 tracks, according to RETROPOP: Chakzilla, Boogie’s in My Soul featuring Snoop Dogg, Curious Subject, Cool U Down featuring Sia, I Know You Can, Bring the Party featuring Lenny Kravitz, Always Love the Challenge, Heart of Gold, Now and Forever and Dreamy Stuff.

Fans hoping for a ballad will not find one. Khan told WBEZ that slow songs simply did not fit the vibe. She described the record as uplifting and positive, and said it is about being out in the world, living your life, having fun and being a good person, rather than about heartbreak.

Her official statement makes the same point. Khan said the album is about joy, freedom and loving yourself and each other, and about finding your power wherever you are in life. She added that she has lived a lot of life since her last record and wanted these songs to celebrate that.

The singles released so far bear that out. WBEZ describes them as upbeat pop songs flavoured with disco, funk and jazz, with lyrics about confidence, fun, spreading joy and a promising new romance.

The Singles So Far

The title track came first. Its video shows a supersized Khan walking through a city and restoring buildings instead of flattening them. Khan told WBLS that she loved the Godzilla films as a child and wanted her own giant to be a force for good rather than destruction.

A promotional image for the song shows the giant Khan leaning against a building beside a Chaka Khan Way street sign. WBEZ notes that the same sign exists in real life in Hyde Park, Chicago, the neighbourhood where she grew up, and Khan told the station that everything about her comes from being from Chicago.

Boogie’s in My Soul followed in June as the second release. It is a dance-pop track with Snoop Dogg, and WBLS reports that Snoop opens the song with a nod to Khan’s 1984 hit I Feel for You, the Prince-written single from her solo catalogue. Its video shows the pair performing in front of a lively crowd.

The latest single is Curious Subject, according to the Pause and Play release listings. WBEZ reports that its lyrics play on Khan’s enduring appeal, inviting listeners to get to know her.

A Release on Her Own Terms

Chakzilla arrives through BMG, according to retail listings, and WBEZ reports that Khan is releasing it on her own label, EarthSong. That matters to her. She left Warner Bros in the mid-1990s because she felt she had lost control of the direction of her music, recorded Come 2 My House with Prince on his NPG label, and founded EarthSong in 1998.

Khan told WBEZ that her career now runs at a pace that keeps her happy after years in a gruelling industry. She lives on her own farm in Georgia, and said she has always wanted to feel this free with her music.

Pause and Play lists the album on CD and on vinyl, including an Amazon-exclusive CD with a signed insert. The listing credits Kurstin as producer, and names Lenny Kravitz, Snoop Dogg and Sia as the guests.

The Chicago Story Behind the Name

Chaka Khan was born Yvette Marie Stevens and grew up in Chicago’s Hyde Park and Auburn Gresham neighbourhoods in the 1950s and 1960s. WBEZ reports that her home was full of art and records: her father made charcoal sketches, her mother painted, and the adults around her played everything from opera and jazz to soul.

Spirituality came early too. Her great-grandmother, a spiritualist, made her learn Psalm 23 and read her palm, predicting that many people would one day know her name. The name itself arrived later, when a Yoruba priest gave the teenager the name Chaka, meaning woman of fire, according to WBEZ.

Her teenage years were also political. While at Calumet High School and Kenwood Academy, she campaigned for Black liberation and joined the Black Panther Party, working with Fred Hampton before he was killed in a police raid. Khan told WBEZ that the hard side of city life made her stronger and taught her lessons she still carries.

Music took over in the 1970s. After talent shows and club gigs on the North Side, she joined the local funk band Rufus, which scored early hits with Tell Me Something Good, You Got the Love and Sweet Thing before her solo career took off. That history explains why a street sign, a hometown and a sense of doing good sit at the heart of the Chakzilla videos rather than on the margins.

A Year Full of Honours

The album lands at the end of an unusually busy year. According to WBEZ, the highlights have included a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the West End debut of I’m Every Woman: The Chaka Khan Musical, a viral performance of Through the Fire for the COLORS platform, and the addition of I Feel for You to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry.

She has also been road-testing the new material. Khan previewed songs from the album at First Avenue in Minneapolis on 3 June during Prince Celebration: 2026, a week-long tribute to her late friend and collaborator, as a DJ played Boogie’s in My Soul and Curious Subject for a crowd that was among the first to hear them.

The 11-time Grammy winner followed her Rufus years with solo classics such as I’m Every Woman. Chakzilla is not an attempt to recreate that era. It is a pop and dance record written with a songwriter, Sia, who grew up listening to it.

Where to Start on Friday

For listeners who want the party first, Boogie’s in My Soul is the obvious entry point, with Snoop Dogg bridging her 1984 hit and the new album. For the clearest sense of the Sia partnership, start with Cool U Down, the track Sia sings on. Bring the Party, with Lenny Kravitz, adds a third very different voice to the record.

MusicDrops.News recently covered another late-career release from a soul great, when Watching The Tide became Steve Cropper’s final studio album. Chakzilla points in a different direction. At 73, Chaka Khan has made a record that looks forward, sounds bright and asks nothing more of its listeners than that they get up and dance.