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Entertainment
Review: Chaka Khan’s ‘Hello Happiness’ is mini bundle of joy
By PABLO GORONDI, Associated Press
Chaka Khan, “Hello Happiness” (Diary/ Island Records)
With just seven songs in 28 minutes, Chaka Khan’s “Hello Happiness” is a little bundle of joy, emphasis on the little. But you shouldn’t feel shortchanged.
Consider it instead as a corrective to all those overlong, overblown collections of incessant sonic doodles and listen up as the iconic singer makes her feelings and intentions clear from the start: “Music makes me say/Goodbye sadness/Hello happiness.”
Khan’s clarity of purpose comes on the back of a dramatic awakening after the 2016 death of Prince, a close collaborator, which helped her confront her own addic- tion to prescription drugs.
The title track is a good sampler for the rest of the record — deep grooves, dance- floor beats and Khan’s excellent voice, which, even decades since her days with Chicago funksters Rufus and a dozen years after her last solo release, has not lost the ability to create its own flow while forming a tight connection to each song.
The production from Switch and Sarah Ruba Taylor applies just the right amount of now sounds to classic disco and funk structures, with some space judiciously re- served for rapturous reggae on “Isn’t That Enough” and a gliding acoustic guitar and tap-tap-tapping percussion on cozy closer “Ladylike.”
Elsewhere, the scalding, exuberant “Too
Hot” isn’t shy to describe the kind of man who’ll earn a swipe right, and “Like Sugar,” a contortionist’s dream, features Khan
on timbales and is based on the Fatback Band’s “(Are You Ready) Do the Bus Stop.”
Chaka Khan has found some content- ment and “Hello Happiness” is gratifying proof.
New Mitch Albom book, ‘Chika,’ coming in November
NEW YORK (AP) — The tragic, but inspiring story of a young Haitian orphan led Mitch Albom to write his first nonfic- tion book in over a decade.
Harper announced Tuesday that Albom’s “Chika” comes out in November. The title refers to a girl born days before the 2010
earthquake in Haiti. The child was trans- ferred to an orphanage Albom runs in Port Au Prince.
Albom and his wife, Janine, eventually brought Chika to their home in Detroit af- ter she was diagnosed at age 5 with a brain tumor. The book tells of their two-year
journey to find treatment before Chika died in 2017, at age 7.
Albom is known for best-sellers such
as the nonfiction “Tuesdays With Morrie” and the novel “For One More Day.” He calls “Chika” his “hardest yet most import- ant book.”
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