Among music legends, Nile Rodgers is truly exceptional. He amplifies his legacy as a multi-Grammy-winning composer, producer, arranger and guitarist by constantly traversing new musical terrain and successfully expanding the boundaries of popular music. As the co-founder of CHIC, Rodgers pioneered a musical language that sparked the advent of hip-hop with “Good Times,” distinguished CHIC as the “most sampled band in history” (The Guardian, 2011), generated groundbreaking pop hits like “Le Freak,” and won CHIC eleven Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominations. His career-defining productions for David Bowie (Let’s Dance), Madonna (Like A Virgin), Diana Ross (diana), and Sister Sledge (We Are Family), plus his work with artists like Duran Duran, INXS, Mick Jagger, Grace Jones, Steve Winwood, Peter Gabriel, The B-52s, and Michael Jackson, have sold over 300 million albums and 50 million singles worldwide while his innovative, trendsetting collaborations with Daft Punk, Avicii, Disclosure, and Sam Smith reflect the vanguard of contemporary music.
As a cultural icon and music innovator with more than 200 production credits to his name, Nile Rodgers transcends all styles of music across every generation with a body of work that’s garnered him inductions into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (2017) and the Songwriters Hall of Fame (2016). Earlier in 2016, Rodgers scored four #1 hits on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart, including his collaboration with Christian Aguilera on “Telepathy.” Signed to Warner Bros., Rodgers is currently recording It’s About Time, the first new CHIC album in 25 years. “I’ll Be There,” the album’s first single, went to #1 on the Billboard Dance Chart while the accompanying video generated nearly three million views in less than a week. Since 2015, he’s produced, performed, and hosted the annual FREAK OUT! LET’S DANCE! Festival (FOLD) in New York and London, an all-star concert series distinguished by an “eclectic, genre-spanning set” (Rolling Stone) featuring performances by headliners like Beck, Bette Midler, Janelle Monáe, Keith Urban, and Pharrell Williams.
In addition to headlining the world’s most prestigious venues, Rodgers’ many endeavors include his roles as Chairman and Founder of the We Are Family Foundation (WAFF), serving on the NARAS Board of Governors, giving keynote talks at events for noted media companies like FremantleMedia and conferences like Google Zeitgeist, scoring music for blockbuster films, writing the critically acclaimed autobiography Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco and Destiny (2011), and distributing soundtracks for popular AAA video games via his national distribution company and record label Sumthing Distribution and Sumthing Else Music Works. “The full scope of Nile Rodgers’ career is still hard to fathom, and it’s not just ongoing, it’s in overdrive,” Rolling Stone recently remarked, naming Rodgers one of “the 50 Most Important People in EDM” (2014) Indeed, Rodgers’ unrivaled track record is a mere glimpse of what’s yet to come.
