In new book, 'Chaka! Through the Fire,' singer talks about her battle with drugs her poor choices of men being an absentee mother how she learned to forgive herself

Jet, Dec 22, 2003 by Clarence Waldron

SINGER TALKS ABOUT

* HER BATTLE WITH DRUGS

* HER POOR CHOICES OF MEN

* BEING AN ABSENTEE MOTHER

* HOW SHE LEARNED TO FORGIVE HERSELF

Chaka Khan has been "through the fire" and tells how she survived it all in her new candid book, Chaka! Through The Fire.

Chaka is as honest, raw and clear as her soul music as she discusses everything from her battle with drugs to her poor choices of men to feeling guilty about not being there for her two children.

Along the way, she found a way to triumph over the pain and guilt and learned how to forgive herself--and most importantly, how to love herself.

She emphasizes that her book is "a lesson on how NOT to live your life."

She explains during a phone interview with JET: "Any advice that I can give in the book, any application to life or any philosophy that anyone will take on will come from a place of what not to do. Because I am more informed on what not to do than on what to do. There's a tone of that in the book."

She stresses, "I wanted to write this book to say that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. You can acquire power. You can empower yourself. You can have something to do with your fate."

Chaka's revealing autobiography (Rodale Books, $23.95) has become a hot seller this holiday season.

She hopes the book will help people especially during the holiday season where so many are looking toward the New Year and making plans to improve their lives. "Read it. It's a good read. Maybe it will help somebody, if they are at the end of the road and feeling like nothing will pan out."

She admits that looking back over the painful chapters of her life was difficult. "I had to slay a lot of demons," she tells JET. "And I am still working out problems," she admits. "It was some kind of therapy. Because I am a 'next girl.' I don't like looking back and wallowing, I get the lessons from the past and try to apply."

Chaka first arrived on the music scene in 1973 as the lead singer of Rufus, one of the first multiracial bands. Known best as Rufus featuring Chaka Khan, the group recorded the big hits Sweet Thing, Tell Me Something Good, Once You Get Started, Everlasting Love, Do You Love What You Feel and Ain't Nobody. She began he solo career in the late '70s with the smash hit I'm Every Women followed by What Cha Gonna Do For Me, Clouds, Papillion, I Feel For You and Through the Fire.

Recalling her battle with drugs she writes in Chaka! Through The Fire: "A lot of people think it's a miracle that I didn't wind up like Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin. And whenever I've been asked why I didn't, I have only one answer: Heft if I know. I don't mean to be flip. But that's a big question, don't you think? I find there's usually no neat, quick answer for those."

Chaka has two children, Milini and Damien, and says being away from them on the road during the early days of her career was always painful.

She remembers the agony of traveling without her firstborn, Milini: "Being away from my baby was a killer. I missed her so! I felt some mix of guilt and anger when I thought about the daily, tiny, miracle moments of development that I was missing out on."

She continues, "I think a big part of my drug thing was about escaping from those feelings," she reveals in Chaka! Through the Fire. "Too, there was the loneliness ... I didn't have an assistant, wardrobe girl, or anyone like that back then to do sister-girlfriend stuff with me when I was on the road. Fueling the loneliness was not knowing whom to trust. Over the years, I'd wonder if a guy was really with me for me or for my fame. When in doubt, get high. I'd also get angry ... When angry, get high."

She adds, "Believe me, I know some people won't exactly weep for me. But when you've developed the problems I had, you can't put anything before your addiction, let alone family before career.

She also reveals in the book: "... Trying to forget my pain, trying to drown memories of a younger Milini climbing into my suitcase when I was heading out for the road, trying not to think about what it might be like for Milini and Damien not to have full-time fathering but always having a transient, not very responsible mother, who embarrassed them with the outfits she wore on the rare occasion that she made a visit to their schools."

She also recalls, ... "the kids wanting more time with me.... the kids keeping me in a ring of guilt about me being gone, about me being high, about me not fooling them--they knew half the time it was really my mama who bought their birthday and Christmas presents because I didn't have time for that, time to read them bedtime stories...."

She especially remembers battling drugs when she lived in a luxurious penthouse on the Upper West Side of New York. "I kept living fast throughout the 1980s, hurting myself with my lifestyle ... Nobody could get me to stop living the high life ... Heroin was the only thing I could go on with."

In her autobiography, the twice-divorced Grammy Award-winning singer also admits she has had bad luck with men. She has dated both White and Black men and men from other ethnic racial groups. "Chaka 'United Nations' Khan. That's what some friends called me when it came to me and men," she writes.