Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Chaka Khan\u2019s arrival at the Royal Festival Hall was preceded by a film showing famous admirers such as Joni Mitchell and fellow Chicagoan Michelle Obama. Then from stage right came a beaming Khan, holding a microphone and greeted by a grand ovation.\u201cWelcome to the Meltdown,\u201d she announced. The singer is this year\u2019s guest curator of the Southbank Centre\u2019s festival, an annual 10-day programme of events. Previous holders of the post have included David Bowie, Ornette Coleman and Patti Smith. Khan, feted as \u201cthe queen of funk\u201d, belongs in their company. But her Meltdown line-up is underpowered: the acts don\u2019t come close to matching the prominence of past participants such as Nina Simone and Radiohead. And her opening night concert didn\u2019t strike the right note either.She was accompanied by a large backing troupe whose number included a brass trio, two percussionists, three singers and four dancers. The format was the 50th-anniversary show that she is currently touring (including a Norway date during Meltdown). Its setlist was drawn from her 1970s and 1980s heyday. The earliest songs went back to when she was frontwoman of funk band Rufus. After that, she went solo with soul, disco and pop hits, not so much adapting herself to a new era of synthesiser-driven music as imprinting herself on it. (She objects to the \u201cqueen of funk\u201d label as too limiting.)The slick mid-1980s pop of \u201cThis Is My Night\u201d was given a bustling soul-R&B makeover by her band. Cheers went up for the full-fat bassline of \u201cTell Me Something Good\u201d, the very funky Stevie Wonder-penned hit that first launched Khan into the charts a decade earlier in 1974 when she was in Rufus. But then the momentum stalled. Shifts in gear caused the audience to sit down and get back up like jack-in-the-boxes. The flow wasn\u2019t helped by Khan\u2019s charming but roundabout stage chat, stronger on random trivia (\u201cI\u2019m not a phone person\u201d) than reminiscences of her storied career.At 71, she can still sing. The recent filmed performance that she did for NPR\u2019s Tiny Desk concert series is proof of that. But her voice was less striking at the Royal Festival Hall. Or rather, it was too striking. Brash amplification gave an overbearing quality to the big blaring cries that she regularly unleashed. The audience acclaimed these vocal irruptions, but they actually had the effect of capsizing songs. Nostalgic desire for her to be the power vocalist of old was understandable. But she sounded better suited to quieter, more mellifluous numbers such as Rufus\u2019s \u201cMagic in Your Eyes\u201d.\u00a0She tried to start a singalong during another Rufus song, \u201cSweet Thing\u201d, but the response was mild. Lungs were being saved for a rapturously received closing rendition of her signature hits \u201cI\u2019m Every Woman\u201d and \u201cAin\u2019t Nobody\u201d. However, this finale was weakened by the ill-judged halt in proceedings that came before it, when Khan exited for a 10-minute break, leaving the stage to her dancers. They in turn stood frozen in place for an excruciating period of silence while a glitch with the DJ\u2019s equipment was resolved. It summed up a stuttering start for this year\u2019s Meltdown.\u00a0\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606\u2606Meltdown Festival continues to June 23, southbankcentre.co.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Chaka Khan\u2019s arrival at the Royal Festival Hall was preceded by a film showing famous admirers such as Joni Mitchell and fellow Chicagoan Michelle Obama. Then<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-127764","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127764"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127765,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127764\/revisions\/127765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}