Nile Rodgers tells how he tricked Diana Ross into “coming out”

Nile Rodgers is brilliant. Along with Bernard Edwards he’s left a body of work which is almost beyond compare, with one of his biggest successes being Diana Ross’s disco-infused comeback album of 1980, Diana - still her biggest-selling studio album.

Diana featured “Upside Down” - which is in my top 10 songs ever ever ever - as well as the Notorious B.I.G-sampled “I’m Coming Out”. Listened to now the latter is obviously as gay as a window, but Nile somehow managed to convince Diana Ross that he was oblivious to such connotations. This is him at the Music Matters conference, telling the tale of how he got the idea and how he got away with it…

Here's the video:



Edited to not appear as if we're going TOO off topic.
[Edited 6/17/09 22:23pm]
[Edited 6/18/09 15:58pm]

The whole "Diana" album was filled with Drama

She tricked them too, they had her recording the song in the style as Chic,,,she went back and re-recorded them her way. Nile & Bernard were SO upset about that.

I'm glad they released the ORIGINAL recorded songs in the limited edition.

Harlepolis said:

Actually give that credit for Russ Terrana for changing the entire album, lol. Also a prominent radio deejay warned Diana in New York that releasing the album as it was originally intended would "destroy her career".

Gay iconic song, makes me happy and tingly all over

Timmy84 said:

Man, I STILL don't get people's distate for disco

Where are these mofos now, thats what I wanna know? Somebody need to picket against whats going on NOW, shit

Harlepolis said:

Ya know!?

What the heck did she think it meant?

In addition to the other reasons usually given, people were just disco'd out. It didn't die out immediately after the "Disco Sucks" nonesense either. It stuck around about 2 years more.

Lots of young folks really love disco these days and have since the mid-late 90s. IOW, it's the Boomers who are likliest to grouse.
[Edited 6/17/09 14:12pm]

Harlepolis said:

Didn't Diana want Rick James to prduce this, but Berry said no go? I'd have loved to hear his production on her since he was so good w/ classic Motown peeps.

brooksie said:

Yep!

And the album cover idea was fabulous as well

Ms.Diane lookin' down at her grave which is filled with her wigs, with a match in hand ready to throw it down.

To hear SoulAlive tell it, since he's the one who has the inside story of the album.

brooksie said:

Yeah Diana wanted Rick for the album. Berry didn't want Diana changing her entire style so he advised Rick to "just do four tracks" with Diana to which Rick replied "hell no" and went on giving the songs he was going to give to Diana to sing on to Teena Marie and the rest is Motown history. In protest to Berry, Diana had Ashford & Simpson produce "The Boss", which upset Berry since he didn't want former Motown staff writers to work with his artists so Berry didn't become executive producer of the album. After the Rick episode, Diana went to find Chic to produce the next one.
[Edited 6/17/09 14:18pm]

About the Disco Sucks incident in 1979. I don't think it had all that much impact in itself at the time. I think most folks thought they looked like idiots IF they actually saw/heard about it. Most peope didn't have cable back then, so I'm not even sure if it got very wide coverage at the time. I think it's legend grew several years after the fact.

Keep in mind that disco went into early rap sounds, so we kept hearing it even after it was supposedly over. Those idiots didn't seem to get that punk was out to destroy arena rock...ya know, the bedenimed long haired 45 min guitar solo stuff that plagued the 70s. That was more prevelant thru the whole decade than disco.

Just going by memory, but I'd say disco lasted well into 1981...but it was certainly HUGE in 1980 w/ the Diana album. That and The Boss was off the chain w/ massive play, younguns!
[Edited 6/17/09 14:25pm]
[Edited 6/17/09 14:29pm]

brooksie said:

No disco has lasted contrary to popular belief that it "faded" in the 1980s.

Disco music just have different names now: "dance-pop", "techno", "electronica" (though those two were around in the '70s), "house", "freestyle", "electro funk", "electro pop". In fact disco is a nickname for "dance music" anyways. It was originally called "discotechque", they just shortened it.

It's just that disco is not mainstream and hasn't been since 1985 but it's still there.

brooksie said:

Disco never truly went away - it just morphed into other forms(dance, house, techno, etc.)

I remember those "Disco Sucks" days - bunch of rockers(and their fans) all pissed off because the spotlight wasn't on them. Boo fucking hoo-hoo. I see the same kind of hate directed at rap/hip-hop. Instead of enjoying their music, these rock cats constantly bash rap. Like the Disco Sucks crowd, they wear their hate like a badge of honor. They're all over Youtube. I think they have a deeper aganda.

I know disco didn't die, just that name for it faded, but the sound remained.

Rock, as much as I love it, became stagnant in the 70s. Huge arena acts playing 80s min solos and no moving the sounds forward. The rock boys are mad about hip hop in particular because everybody predicted it would die even quicker than disco, but you can hardly find any rockers these days (under 60) who can complete in any way w/ rappers.

In short, they're mad because they're day is done. Disco was just the beginning, but the days of Lynard Skynard belong to the misty past.

Timmy84 said:

Everybody zipped their mouths once the label got changed.

But my ?uestion still stands, WHY is there a distate against disco? Can somebody hip a dame.

Harlepolis said:

I don't think there really is a distaste except w/ old "Free Bird" types. 70s-80s sounds are the rage w/ the kiddos and have been for awhile.

Harlepolis said:

There's no distaste. Disco is LOVED, you just don't hear too many people admitting it.

Think of Disco Sucks as suburban hetero White dudes having a temper tantrum. It was no more or less than that. These were the sorts who could never have gotten into Studio 54 (and some almost certainly tried). They rejected disco because disco rejected them...it was upbeat, dancable, non couch locked, and generally about pleasure. Rock of that era was decidely dull.

It's just like the way people whined about rock n roll in the 50s, long hair in the 60s, and rap from the 80s til now. They were used to being front and center while all these music forms challenged this.

Timmy84 said:

WHY?

It seems EVERY interview I read by soul singers circa '79 showed a GREAT deal of resentment toward disco. And I remember seeing these ol' footages of people aggressively protesting it, writing "Disco sucks" in their cars.

I even read that some disco acts couldn't tour in some cities in the state for fear of being beaten up, or even killed

The whole "disco sucks" is like a cool thing to say,,,,and I don't even know WHY it should be.

Harlepolis said:

I guess soul singers didn't wanna be pigeonholed for recording it. I guess at the time so many soul acts who DIDN'T record disco felt that their sound was a carbon copy of what they had been doing. It's loved NOW but back then I guess that soul artists just didn't like to be associated with strobe lights and shit.

brooksie said:

...and there it is in a nutshell, Harlepolis. I was in college during those years, and I heard a lot of anti-gay, anti-black shit directed at the music.

uPtoWnNY said:

Right. Disco and its big brother funk were uniting musical genres and dominated by black and gay musicians but it was music for everybody.

Harley, I guess a reason why SOME soul artists abandoned disco or didn't call their late 1970s music "disco" (as much as Marvin and Aretha claimed they "hated" it, their music around 1976 afterwards definitely were part of the disco culture). Even Diana Ross didn't wanna do disco at first but it got her back to being a popular diva again.

Harlepolis said:

I haven't heard anybody saying that since that era, but who did you see saying it? The answer lies there. Think about this, who'd be dumb enough to write that on their car? This was mostly young boys then who were showing out.

Let's also not forget that disco pushed many non disco (Black) acts off the charts. Think of disco then like hip hop today where it's difficult to get any legs on your stuff w/o a hip hop beat or a guest rapper.

Tho some of that was really the last time straight white boys could act like that w/o much push back, disco really did dominate the charts for several years. People were disco'd out.
[Edited 6/17/09 14:51pm]

brooksie said:

Exactly. The commercial factor of disco definitely had an effect on soul music. People said soul music peaked around 1976. Afterwards, you hardly heard from soul artists. Even when some of them did do disco, they hardly got on the chart. Aretha flopped badly with her disco records, as did Dionne Warwick with her only attempt at it. Marvin went totally P-Funk inspired after 1977.

uPtoWnNY said:

Yup, because aside from the Bee Gees, how many disco acts were straight white dudes? They resented seeing Blacks and gays taking their places in their faces. Too damn bad!

Timmy84 said:

Yeah Rick James didn't like Diana Ross at all he said she was a true bitch! She had a diva attitude and he refused to work with her. Diana Ross has been booed a lot here lately for being such a diva to people. Her attitude has not changed much over the years.

That I'm coming out song was a shocker. I never knew what it meant either. I never assumed Diana Ross was gay, so I was singing it like everybody else. I'm coming out could mean other things other than being gay, like going through trials, or a test of faith.

Chic35 said:

Yeah I remember Rick saying that.

I think "I'm Coming Out" was a social song not just for the LGBT communities but also for anybody coming out of a bad situation or graduating from college or leaving your parents' home and living your life, lol.

It can mean a lot of things but Nile's inspiration was correct, I heard him tell this story about seeing the drag queens a few years back.

Yes, it's a gay anthem but it's more than that too. Hell there were other disco songs that had that "coming out" sentiment. Patti LaBelle's "Release (The Tension)" can be seen as an anthem too (not just for dancing either) and of course we can not forget "I Am What I Am" by Gloria Gaynor.
[Edited 6/17/09 14:57pm]

Timmy84 said:

Yes, disco had a hard effect on more "traditional" soul and funk groups...76 sounds about right too. All of a sudden, the bass heavy stuff, the big instrumental bands (P Funk, EWF, etc), and folks like Aretha were having a very hard time. Most of them seemed to resent the lack of stagemanship and lack of instrumentalists disco sounds brought.

Many of these artists re-emerged strongly in the early-mid 80s, but in the last 70s it was rough going.
[Edited 6/17/09 14:57pm]

Timmy84 said:

Also don't forget The Jones Girls "Children Of The Night"

brooksie said:

And you know how some of the funk bands were thinking at the time. Yeah some were getting airplay on the R&B radio as they always did but pop success was limited. George Clinton hated it too. As did James Brown. In fact, he got so upset, he called out Barry White and the Ohio Players (who were trying to do disco) on it on "Get Up Offa That Thang".