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By Malcolm X Abram, cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio – Seven-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominee Chaka Khan will celebrate her 50-year music career and her 70th birthday at a special event on March 29 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Khan’s dual milestones will be commemorated with an interview and a Q&A session with Shelby Morrison, the Rock Hall’s Director of Curatorial Operations and Artist Relations.
There will also be a special cocktail reception. The members-only event is sold out but will be made available for streaming at rockhall.com
Additionally, several artifacts from Khan’s career will be added to the Legends of Rock exhibit on March 29, including the gown she wore when she won Best R&B Vocal Performance Grammy in 1985 and the outfit she wore in the “I Feel For You.”
Rufus and Chaka Khan have been eligible for induction into the Rock Hall since 1998. The group has been nominated four times but never inducted. It is not among the 14 nominees up for induction this year.
The Rock Hall has been taking heat in the press and on social media recently, amid accusations that it has historically marginalized women. Rocker Courtney Love blasted the Rock Hall in a recent editorial in The Guardian. Her essay was sparked by social media discussion on her Twitter account, taking the Rock Hall voting body and the New York-based Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation to task for discriminating against women. Love mentions Khan specifically in her essay and tweets.
“But for all her exceptional talent and accomplishments – and if there is one thing women in music must be, it is endlessly exceptional – Khan has not convinced the Rock Hall,” Love wrote. “Her credits, her Grammys, her longevity, her craft, her tenacity to survive being a young Black woman with a mind of her own in the 70s music business, the bridge to “Close the Door” – none of it merits canonization. Or so sayeth the Rock Hall.”
Akron native Chrissie Hynde, who was inducted with the Pretenders in 2005, also slammed the Rock Hall in a recent Facebook post, saying she regrets her association with it but felt obligated to participate in the induction because her parents were excited about it.