Nile Gregory Rodgers Jr. (born September 19, 1952) is an American musician, songwriter, guitarist and record producer. The co-founder of Chic, he has written, produced, and performed on records that have sold more than 750 million albums and 100 million singles worldwide.
Formed as the Big Apple Band in 1972 with bassist Bernard Edwards, Chic released their self-titled debut album in 1977; it featured the hit singles "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)" and "Everybody Dance". The 1978 album C'est Chic included "I Want Your Love" and "Le Freak", with the latter selling more than seven million singles worldwide. The song "Good Times" from the 1979 album Risqué was a number one single on the pop and soul charts, and became one of the most-sampled songs of all time, predominantly in hip-hop, starting with the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight".
With Edwards, Rodgers wrote and produced music for other artists, including the songs "He's the Greatest Dancer" and "We Are Family" (for Sister Sledge) and "I'm Coming Out" and "Upside Down" (for Diana Ross). After Chic's breakup in 1983, Rodgers produced albums and singles for other artists, including David Bowie's Let's Dance; "Original Sin" by INXS; Duran Duran's "The Reflex" and "Notorious"; and Madonna's Like a Virgin. He also worked with artists including Kylie Minogue, Nervo, Jake Shears, the B-52s, Keith Urban, Jeff Beck, Avicii, Kygo, Daft Punk, Mick Jagger, Coldplay, Grace Jones, the Vaughan Brothers, Bryan Ferry, Christina Aguilera, Lady Gaga, Benjamin Ingrosso, George Michael and Beyoncé. He won three Grammy Awards in 2014 for his work on Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, and two in 2023 for his work with Beyoncé on her album Renaissance. In 2018, Rodgers co-founded Hipgnosis Songs Fund, a publicly traded music intellectual property investment company.
Rodgers is a Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame via the Musical Excellence category in 2017. He has received six Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement/Special Merit Award. Known for his chucking guitar style, in 2014 Rolling Stone wrote that "the full scope of Nile Rodgers' career is still hard to fathom". In 2023, Rolling Stone placed Rodgers 7th on a list of the 250 greatest guitarists of all time, writing: "There's 'influential,' then there's 'massively influential', then there's Nile Rodgers... a true innovator who never slows down, still making history with his guitar."
Early life
Rodgers was born on September 19, 1952, in New York City on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, to Beverly Goodman. She gave birth to Rodgers when she was 14. His biological father, Nile Rodgers Sr., was a travelling percussionist who specialized in Afro-Cuban beats and was rarely present as Rodgers grew up; although influential in his life, Rodgers saw his father only a "handful" of times prior to his death in 1970. In 1959, Goodman married Bobby Glanzrock. Rodgers described Glanzrock in his 2011 autobiography as a "beatnik PhD, whose observations had angles that would make Miles Davis contemplate his cool." Richard Pryor, Thelonious Monk, and Lenny Bruce often visited their home in Greenwich Village. Glanzrock and Goodman were addicted to heroin, and Rodgers began using drugs at 13.
Before learning to play the guitar at 16, Rodgers played the flute and the clarinet. As a teenager, he played guitar with African, Persian, Latin, jazz and Boogaloo bands. He became a subsection leader of the Lower Manhattan branch of the New York Black Panther Party. He was raised as a Catholic.
Rodgers' cousin, trumpeter Robert "Spike" Mickens, was a member of Kool & the Gang from 1964 to 1986.
Career
1970s: Formation of Chic, "Le Freak", Sister Sledge
Rodgers met bassist Bernard Edwards in 1970 while working as a touring musician for the Sesame Street stage show. Together they formed The Big Apple Band and initially worked as back-up musicians for the vocal group New York City ("I'm Doin' Fine Now"). New York City's one hit allowed them to tour extensively, opening for The Jackson 5 on the American leg of their first world tour in 1973. The band dissolved after their second album failed to yield a hit.
Rodgers and Edwards subsequently joined forces with drummer Tony Thompson to form the Boys, playing gigs up and down the East Coast. Although there was label interest, record companies passed on the band after discovering its members were black, believing that black rock artists would be too hard to promote.
As the Big Apple Band, Rodgers and Edwards worked with Ashford & Simpson and Luther Vandross, among others. Since another New York artist, Walter Murphy, had a band called The Big Apple Band, in 1977 Rodgers and Edwards changed the band's name to Chic.
Inspired by Roxy Music, Chic developed a sound that was a fusion of jazz, soul, and funk grooves with melodies and lyrics with a European influence. Between gigs, they recorded the song "Dance, Dance, Dance", with then-boss Luther Vandross on vocals. Originally released by Buddah Records, it was a hit when it was re-released by Atlantic in the summer of 1977. Atlantic picked up an album option with Rodgers and Edwards, who quickly wrote more songs, and Chic's self-titled debut was released in November.
The band scored numerous top ten hits, including "Le Freak", "I Want Your Love", "Everybody Dance", "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)", "My Forbidden Lover", and "Good Times" becoming club/pop/R&B standards. "Le Freak" was Atlantic Records' only triple platinum selling single at the time, and "Good Times" shot to No. 1 in August 1979 despite that year's "Disco Sucks" campaign.
The success of Chic's first singles led Atlantic to offer Rodgers and Edwards the opportunity to produce any act on its roster. They chose Sister Sledge, whose 1979 album, We Are Family, hit No. 3 on the Billboard chart, charting well into 1980. The first two singles, "He's the Greatest Dancer" and the title cut "We Are Family" both reached No. 1 on the R&B chart, and No. 6 and No. 2, respectively on the pop chart. In April 2018, "We Are Family" was selected to be preserved in the Library of Congress.
1980s: Diana Ross, David Bowie, INXS, Madonna, Duran Duran
The 1979 disco backlash derailed Chic, and Edwards retreated from work, while Rodgers' drug use accelerated. Rodgers and Edwards delivered their final Atlantic album under contract, Believer, in 1982. They completed one of their last projects together in 1980, writing and producing the album Diana for Diana Ross, which yielded the hits "Upside Down" and "I'm Coming Out". They produced Deborah Harry's 1981 solo album Koo Koo, and produced the hit "Spacer" for the French disco act Sheila and B. Devotion. During the same time period, Chic's song "Good Times" was sampled on the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight", the first multiple-platinum hip hop single. The song continued to influence the sounds of others, including Queen's 1980 No. 1 hit "Another One Bites the Dust", and Blondie, who had a No. 1 hit with "Rapture". Following Chic's breakup, Rodgers released his first solo album, Adventures in the Land of the Good Groove.
With Chic no longer occupying most of his time, Rodgers was free to focus on working with other artists. He produced David Bowie's biggest selling album, Let's Dance, which yielded the hit singles "Let's Dance", "China Girl", and "Modern Love". He produced the single "Original Sin" by INXS, and in 1984, he produced Madonna's album Like a Virgin, which scored four hit singles including its title track, "Material Girl", and "Dress You Up". He worked extensively with Duran Duran, remixing their biggest-selling single, "The Reflex", producing "Wild Boys" on their 1984 live album, Arena, and co-producing the album Notorious.
In 1985, Rodgers produced albums for Sheena Easton, Jeff Beck, Thompson Twins, Mick Jagger, and others, and performed at Live Aid with Madonna and the Thompson Twins. He was named the No. 1 Singles Producer in the World by Billboard at the end of the year. At the end of the decade, he produced albums for Grace Jones, Al Jarreau (L is for Lover), Earth Wind and Fire's vocalist Philip Bailey, and performed on "Higher Love" with Steve Winwood, as well as on records for Cyndi Lauper, and others. In 1989, he co-produced the B-52's multi-platinum album Cosmic Thing; it reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and yielded the singles "Love Shack", and "Roam". He produced Workin' Overtime, Diana Ross' return to Motown, and the soundtracks for Alphabet City, Gremlins, White Nights, and The Fly. He later composed an orchestral soundtrack, his first, for the film Coming to America.
Rodgers formed the short-lived experimental band Outloud in 1987, with David Letterman's guitarist, composer, and vocalist Felicia Collins and French session musician, producer, composer, and keyboardist Philippe Saisse; the trio released a single album, Out Loud, on Warner Bros. Records.
1990s: Production, reformed Chic and death of Edwards, Sumthing Else
In September 1990, shortly after the death of Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Rodgers-produced Vaughan Brothers album Family Style was released. He produced records for David Bowie, Eric Clapton, the B-52s, David Lee Roth, Ric Ocasek, the Stray Cats and others early in the decade, and worked on the soundtracks for Thelma and Louise, Cool World, and The Beavis and Butt-head Experience.
Rodgers and Edwards reformed Chic in 1992 and recorded new material for the album Chic-Ism. In 1996, they released a Japan-only album consisting of old Chic material rerecorded with guest vocalists, Chic Freak and More Treats. Edwards and Rodgers performed with Sister Sledge, Steve Winwood, and Slash in a series of commemorative concerts in Japan.
Edwards died following a concert on April 17, 1996. Rodgers discovered his body. He later said that he "cried like a baby and suffered intensely but eventually realised the best tribute to him would be to carry on and be the best I could be." A year later, Rodgers returned to Japan to pay homage to Edwards, and in 1999, Rodgers released Live at the Budokan, a live recording of Edwards' final performance. The album was not overdubbed or changed in order to keep the recording pure.
Rodgers started playing live concerts again while composing and producing music for the film soundtracks Beverly Hills Cop III, Blue Chips, The Flintstones and Feeling Minnesota, working with Bob Dylan, among others. He played guitar on Seal's cover of "Fly Like an Eagle" for the Space Jam soundtrack, which hit #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1996.
In 1997, The Notorious B.I.G. released "Mo Money Mo Problems" sampling Rodgers and Edwards' song "I'm Coming Out" from Diana Ross's platinum album Diana. "Mo Money, Mo Problems" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks and was nominated for the 1998 Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group.
In 1998, Rodgers founded Sumthing Else Music Works record label and Sumthing Distribution, an independent music label distributor. Sumthing focused on distributing video game soundtracks, and released the world's first 5.1 surround DVD game-soundtrack album. Its titles include the Halo, Resident Evil, Gears of War and Borderlands series.
2000s: Film and video game soundtracks, We Are Family Foundation
In the early 2000s, Rodgers worked extensively on film and video game soundtracks, including Halo 2, Rush Hour 2, Snow Dogs, and Semi-Pro starring Will Ferrell, who co-wrote the title song "Love Me Sexy" with Rodgers.
In 2002, Rodgers returned to work again with the original five members of Duran Duran when he co-produced Astronaut. The album rose to No. 3 in the UK.
Following the September 11 attacks, Rodgers brought together more than 200 musicians and celebrities to record "We Are Family". It was recorded in New York at Avatar Studios (previously The Power Station, where the original recording of "We Are Family" took place in 1978), and in Los Angeles at the Record Plant. The accompanying music video was directed by Spike Lee. An 80-minute documentary, The Making and Meaning of We Are Family, directed by Danny Schechter, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002. In a collaboration between Disney, Nickelodeon and PBS, more than 100 children's television characters participated in a "We Are Family" children's music video, and on March 11, 2002, Disney Channel, Nickelodeon and PBS aired the video to promote tolerance and diversity on the 6-month anniversary of 9/11. In July 2002, Rodgers co-founded the We Are Family Foundation with his life partner, Nancy Hunt. A non-profit organization that promotes "cultural diversity while nurturing and mentoring the vision, talents, and ideas of young people who are positively changing the world", it is dedicated to the vision of a global family.
2010s: Autobiography, Daft Punk, Songwriters Hall of Fame, It's About Time
In 2010, Rhino Records released a four-CD box set, Nile Rodgers Presents The Chic Organization, Volume 1: Savoir Faire, which for the first time collected tracks from all of the acts produced by The Chic Organization up to their original break-up in 1983. Rodgers provided liner notes for the set, which was also reissued in 2013.
Rodgers' critically acclaimed autobiography, Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco, and Destiny was published by Spiegel & Grau, a Random House imprint, in late 2011. It was named one of the top 10 of the 25 Greatest Rock Memoirs of All Time by Rolling Stone.
In February 2012, Rodgers announced that he was collaborating with electronic band Daft Punk for their latest album, "teasing out their R&B influences". The record, Random Access Memories was released in 2013. Rodgers co-wrote and played guitar on three tracks: "Give Life Back to Music", "Lose Yourself to Dance", and "Get Lucky". In April, "Get Lucky" entered the UK Singles Chart at No. 3, only 24 hours after its release, and two weeks later rose to No. 1. In an interview with Official Charts Company, Rodgers said, "I've had big records and Number 1s; I have had records that were Number 1 in the United States but nowhere else ... I've had records which have done well [in the UK], but not in the States. But to have this ubiquitous record, that is a hit everywhere ... It's amazing to me! I'm out on the road and I can hear it wherever I go. I'm flabbergasted!" "Get Lucky" became one of the UK's biggest-selling singles of all time.
Rhino Records released Nile Rodgers Presents The Chic Organization Up All Night (The Greatest Hits), a compilation album featuring songs written, played or produced by Rodgers and Bernard Edwards for Chic and various artists, including Diana Ross, Sister Sledge, Carly Simon, Debbie Harry, Johnny Mathis, Sheila & B. Devotion and Norma Jean Wright. Up All Night reached No. 2 on the UK Compilation Album Chart for the week ending July 13, 2013. In October 2013, Rhino released Nile Rodgers Presents The Chic Organization Up All Night (The Greatest Hits Disco Edition), which included a medley taken from Chic ft. Nile Rodgers' live performance at the 2013 Glastonbury Festival.
Rodgers and Bernard Edwards were nominated to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in October 2013. In January 2014, Rodgers performed "Get Lucky" with Daft Punk on the Grammy Awards, along with Pharrell Williams and Stevie Wonder, with a medley including elements of Chic's "Le Freak" and Wonder's "Another Star". Rodgers won three Grammy Awards for his work with Daft Punk on Random Access Memories, including Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, Record of the Year and Album of the Year. In March, Rolling Stone named Rodgers one of the 50 Most Important People in EDM, stating, "The full scope of Nile Rodgers' career is still hard to fathom, and it's not just ongoing, it's in overdrive." In December, NARAS announced that "Le Freak" would be inducted into The Grammy Hall of Fame.
Rodgers' solo single "Do What You Wanna Do (IMS Anthem)" was released on August 10, 2014 to benefit the We Are Family Foundation. A year later, in March 2015, Rodgers released Chic's first single in more than 23 years, "I'll Be There", with a live streamed concert from The Roundhouse in London. The song was produced using original Chic outtake tapes from the 70s, with Bernard Edwards, Tony Thompson, and vocalists Alfa Anderson and Luci Martin. The song went to No. 1 on Billboard's Dance Music Chart on June 20, 2015. In August, Rodgers launched FOLD Festival (FreakOut! Let's Dance), a multi-day event with a diverse line-up of artists including Beck, Duran Duran, Chaka Khan, Keith Urban, Janelle Monáe, Ginger Minj, Chic and others.
Rodgers collaborated with Lady Gaga to remake Chic's hit, "I Want Your Love" for Tom Ford's Spring/Summer 2016 collection video in lieu of a fashion show.
Rodgers and Bernard Edwards were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame on June 9, 2016. In 2017, after 11 nominations for Chic, Rodgers was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with an award for Musical Excellence. "It's sort of bittersweet," says Rodgers. "I'm quite flattered that they believed that I was worthy, but my band Chic didn't win. They plucked me out of the band and said, 'You're better than Chic.' That's wacky to me ... I am flattered and I think it's cool, but I feel like somebody put me in the lifeboat and told my family they can't get in."
On the evening of 25 June 2017, Rodgers and Chic returned to the Glastonbury Festival, as headliners on the Pyramid Stage, for an audience of close to 100,000. In September of the same year, a version of George Michael's song "Fantasy" was released, credited to "George Michael featuring Nile Rodgers." The track, released as a B-side by Michael's label in 1990, was reworked by Rodgers and featured him prominently on guitar. It was Michael's only posthumous release.
In June 2018, "Till the World Falls", the first single from Nile Rodgers & Chic's first album since 1992, It's About Time, was released. The song featured Mura Masa, Cosha and Vic Mensa. The album was released in September 2018, and hit the Top 10 in the UK. It was the first Chic record to hit the Top 10 in 25 years. Two singles from the album were subsequently released: "Sober" featuring Craig David and Stefflon Don, and "Do You Wanna Party" featuring LunchMoney Lewis. In December 2018, Nile Rodgers & Chic began their first UK arena tour. They were nominated for a Brit Award in the "Best International Group Category", in January 2019.
In July 2018, Rodgers co-founded Hipgnosis Songs Fund with Merck Mercuriadis. An IP investment and song management company, Hipgnosis Songs Fund went public later that year.
In November 2018, to mark the 40th anniversary of "Le Freak", Rhino/Atlantic released The Chic Organisation 1977-79, a 6-CD box set containing Chic's first three albums, Sister Sledge's We Are Family and a collection of rarities, including a facsimile of Chic's first single – a 12″ promo for "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)" released by Buddah Records in 1977.
In January 2019, Rodgers offered 600 free tickets to furloughed US Federal workers during the US Government Shutdown to the Nile Rodgers & Chic concert at the MGM National Harbor in Washington, DC. He played at Cardiff Castle on July 12, 2019, and on February 17, 2020, he participated in Eric Clapton's tribute concert for Ginger Baker.
2020s: Keith Urban, Beyoncé, Grammys, Coldplay
Rodgers has hosted a podcast on Apple Music since August 2020. Titled Deep Hidden Meaning, he has interviewed guests including David Foster, Carole Bayer Sager, Bryan Adams, Timbaland, and Paul McCartney. It was nominated for a British Podcast Award in 2024.
On November 13, 2020, Rodgers was featured on "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" as part of the BBC Radio 2's Allstars' Children in Need charity single. The single debuted at number 7 on the Official UK Singles Chart and number 1 on both the Official UK Singles Sales Chart and the Official UK Singles Download Chart.
Among other artists, in 2021, Rodgers worked with Jack Savoretti (for his album Europiana) and Keith Urban. In April 2021 he teamed with Urban and Breland on the music video for "The Cage", a track from Urban's 2020 album The Speed of Now Part 1. He produced The Big Decider, the first album by The Zutons 13 years.
In the summer of 2021, Rodgers, with Constellation Immersive, launched DiscOasis, an ongoing 1970s-themed disco and roller skating pop-up party at the South Coast Botanic Garden in Rancho Palos Verdes. Developed in part to provide an outside experience during the COVID-19 pandemic, DJs select music from crates of records that Rodgers hand picked from his personal collection.
In July 2022, Hipgnosis Songs Fund was valued at US $2.69 billion.
An asteroid approximately 300 million miles away from Earth was named nilerodgers (191911) in honor of Rodgers' 70th birthday in 2022. Rodgers donated $1 million to the We Are Family Foundation, the organization he co-founded, to mark both his birthday and the foundation's 20th anniversary.
Rodgers performed "Modern Love" and "Let's Dance" with Josh Homme, Omar Hakim and Gaz Coombes at the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium on September 3, 2022.
In 2023, Rodgers won two Grammy Awards, for Best Electronic/Dance Album and Best R&B Song ("Cuff It"), for his work with Beyoncé on her 2022 album Renaissance; in the same occasion, he also received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In the same year, he was featured on the title track of South Korean girl group Le Sserafim's album Unforgiven. He also collaborated with Duran Duran on their single "Black Moonlight", one of three original songs on Duran Duran's Halloween-inspired album Danse Macabre. Finally, he starred in the 2023 Chanel eyewear campaign.
In October 2023, he re-united with Chic for a live performance at NPR's Tiny Desk Concert: the half-hour set included "Le Freak". "Let's Dance", "Get Lucky" and "Soul Glo", a fake commercial jingle Rodgers wrote for the 1988 film Coming to America.
In January 2024, the World Economic Forum announced that Rodgers would receive its 2024 Crystal Award. Presented during the opening session of the event, the announcement stated that Rodgers would be honored for his "efforts to make the world a more peaceful, equal and inclusive place through his music, his commitment to fighting systemic racism, inequality and injustice, and by championing innovative youth voices." In March, he was named Polar Music Prize Laureate, together with Esa-Pekka Salonen. He was among many star guitarists to contribute to a new version of Mark Knopfler's "Going Home: Theme of the Local Hero" in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust, produced the song "Electric Energy" (with Ariana DeBose and Boy George) for Maetthew Vaughn's film Argylle, and worked with Alfie Templeman on his second studio album, Radiosoul, featuring on the track "Just A Dance". He provided guitar on Norwegian DJ Kygo's self-titled fifth studio album, on the track "For Life", also featuring English singer Zak Abel. He also provided additional guitar on British pop rock band Coldplay's song "Good Feelings", which features vocals from Nigerian singer Ayra Starr. The song was included on the band's tenth studio album Moon Music.
Rodgers again worked with Beyonce on her 2024 album, Cowboy Carter. He was nominated for a 2025 Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance as a writer of "Levii's Jeans" (featuring Post Malone). Rodgers featured on "Talk To Me", with Damiano David and Tyla, which was released in September 2025.
