Back from a ten-year hiatus…
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[6.00]
Julian Axelrod: Chaka Khan didn’t need to do this. If I’d brought “I Feel For You” and “I’m Every Woman” and “I Know You, I Live You” into the world, I would go ahead and take the rest of time off. So it’s cool that she chose to come back with a new single after a decade away. It’s even cooler that her comeback single is a murky, swampy funk freakout that sounds like a Madlib dub of a Bee Gees b-side. Sure, there are spots where the groove chases its own tail. But if anyone has earned a bit of self-indulgence, it’s Chaka fucking Khan.
[7]
Alfred Soto: Coincidentally, I’ve blasted Rufus with Chaka Khan’s 1982 comp all weekend: essential summer listening, I’d say. And I admire her De La Soul collaboration from 2000. To deny Chaka’s exuberance would be churlish. I can hear her delight in Switch’s bass line, as if to say, Someone gave me a decent one. Now that he demonstrated they can work together they need to come up with more than space effects and that bass.
[6]
Thomas Inskeep: Funky and danceable, a little bit DFA and a little bit Monae, this comeback single from the high priestess of soul isn’t a TKO but works enough.
[7]
Jonathan Bradley: The percussion is hot and the bassline is walking; everyone involved is having a lot of fun. Me too, I mean!
[6]
Ryo Miyauchi: The band plays precise and spotless, though it doesn’t look too far out of its comfort zone. Chaka Khan meanwhile pokes her head out to check out the dance once in a while, but her brief presence feels like a sample laid on her own song. The workmanlike funk beat finally gets a breath of fresh air from that muted drum break, though it’s over before you know it.
[5]
Ian Mathers: If you’d told me this was a song that sampled Chaka Khan rather than a song by her, I’d probably have believed you.
[5]
Micha Cavaseno: On the one hand, Chaka Khan being produced to sound like a Coldcut-style big beat collage that’d be perfect soundtracking for an early-’00s heist movie planning scene is perhaps an unjust circumstance for one of the most ferocious and compelling singers of her era. Yet as decentralized as she comes across, her textural prowess works to a pretty enjoyable effect that doesn’t hurt the rocking groove. Maybe it’s a bad Chaka Khan single, but it’s a decent enough record at times.
[5]
Ashley John: Perfectly full of funk and bass and groove and still nothing feels like embellishment. “Like Sugar” is an infectious summer hit, pulling you to throw your hair up and keep dancing and dancing into the night, like all other choices are impossible.
[7]