In Her Own Defiant Words: Chaka Khan on early influences and her Catholic childhood

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“I wasn’t exposed to much Gospel music so my only religious singing were some Ave Marias. My mother was into opera and my father was into jazz, so there was a lot of jazz in the house where I grew up. I was born and raised in the University of Chicago area and had an uneventful middle-class Catholic childhood. I had a heavy Catholic upbringing and Catholicism is terrible, it’s the reason there were slaves. Mass every morning at seven o’clock during Lent. Shit. It was a great relief when I finally realized what I was into and got out of it, and although it may have helped make me the strong person that I am, I hate to give it credit for anything in my life. It’s a totally negative, man-made religion. Anyhow, I also hated school so I quit when I was 16 and joined a group so I could make some money.”

CHAKA KHAN

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The quote comes from the Kristine McKenna article for Interview Magazine.

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