The superstar hitmaker spent five hours answering 350 questions – to become the world’s first voice-interactive digital portrait. He reveals why the tell-all experience was thrilling – and sometimes upsetting
Nile Rodgers emerges slowly from the darkness, wearing a white beret, a purple shirt and jeans streaked with orange paint. He strums his “Hitmaker” guitar, estimated to have produced $2bn of
music, and sings a burst from one of his countless hits, We Are Family. Then he sits down, clasps his hands and eagerly awaits your questions. You can ask him anything – from the mundane (Do you eat breakfast?) to the profound (What song reminds you of your childhood?).
This personal audience with one of the world’s most successful songwriters, composers and producers, isn’t just Covid-safe. It does not even require you to leave your home, since this figure easing into an armchair is in fact the world’s first voice-interactive digital portrait. The answers, delivered in real-time, see Rodgers talking about working with everyone from David Bowie and Diana Ross to
Madonna and
Lady Gaga.