Chaka Khan has claimed that Kanye West never told her that he was going to pitch-shift her voice on the sample for his 2003 debut single ‘Though The Wire’.
The singer, who is promoting her new single ‘Woman Like Me‘, said in a new interview that Ye made her “upset about sounding like a chipmunk” when he sped up her vocal from her 1985-released song ‘Through The Fire’.
When asked if West ever reached out to her to discuss the matter, Khan told Good Day DC that they haven’t spoken.
“[Kanye] didn’t mention that he was gonna speed it up, you know, three times its normal speed,” Khan said. “Had he, I would’ve had something to say. But since I didn’t think of that, believe me, I think of it now. I ask, ‘How are we gonna do this?’”
In 2019 Khan recalled to the US chatshow Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen how she gave West permission to sample ‘Through The Fire’ after he personally called her to say how much her music meant to him.
West was famously in hospital when he recorded the song, rapping with his jaw wired shut after he was involved in a serious car crash.
Khan said she was moved by West calling her from his hospital bed but added that she changed her mind after hearing the finished product.
A year later, in 2020, Khan reiterated her disdain. “[West] said he wanted to redo the song,” she recalled in an interview with Vlad TV.
“I said, ‘Well, are you a singer?’ He said, ‘No, no. I just wanted to use your chorus.’”
She continued: “I thought about it and said, ‘Well, he can’t mess it up because I will be singing it after all. It’s my voice.’ But he found a way. By golly, he found a way to frick that up. I was through.”
Khan’s latest album was 2019’s ‘Hello Happiness’. She is yet to announce details of a follow-up.