duran duran and, yes, daft punk are all part of his story. his genius is estimated to have created billions of dollars in worldwide sales, reinventing whole genres and artistic careers along the way. and today, after several brushes with death, whether through addictions or cancers, he's more productive than ever. he's chief creative advisor at london's abbey road studios. but he's notjust a musician — he's a thinker, a global influencer and activist fighting for racial equality and a better deal for artists in the age of streaming. i feel genuinely privileged to meet him. hey, my man! how are you, man? you invite me to all the coolest places. how are you? i'm wonderful. thank you so much for doing this. what a place you've invited me to. this place has got the most amazing story of any studio, right? come on in. let's talk about it. let's do it. thank you very much. # le freak... camera a. b. c. d. e. god, you sound like my two—year—old daughter, man. mark it? lovely. some dude wrote on twitter yesterday — i thought it was hysterical — he says, "i'm thoroughly "convinced that nile has hundreds of hats "with hair hanging." laughter. "hundreds of hats with hair attached to �*em." amol laughs. i was like, "no, that's actually how i'd look "if i didn't have - �* m yeah. it would be like... thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed. so, in preparation for this, i have done a lot of work. i've read your remarkable memoir and i've come to a conclusion, which you're too humble to say, so i'm going to say it, which is, i think you're one of the most influential musicians in modern history. how would you assess your influence? i look at myself, honestly, as a worker bee, and i walk into the studio and my onlyjob is to make sure that artistically, we wind up in a better place than we started. the hitmaker. yeah. tell me the artists that you've worked with, holding that guitar. it's the main workhorse in my life and people, they laugh at me, they make fun of me because they think that i treat it poorly and i say, "you don't understand." i show up to work. this guitar is there to work. but that's probably responsible for what? it's over $1 billion worth of music you've made and produced and written on there. when, for instance, let's dance, the song let's dance comes about in switzerland. what's the process by which david bowie has an idea and you take it and you take it further and you take it to the next level and you turn it from what he envisioned, which is a sort of folk song, to something that would be a song that's sold a zillion records? so he walks into my room one morning and he was very enthusiastic — "no, darling, i think this is a hit." isay, "oh, wow. "cool," you know? "play it for me." and he does something like this. strums riff. # let's dance. something like that. i just thought it was a nice little riff, whatever. i said, "david, what if i did an arrangement? "would you mind if i did an arrangement on this?" he said, "oh, man, i'd love you to do an arrangement." awesome! arrangement. got the right word in. so i went... strums funkier riff. ..which sounds a little more funky to me. and because i knew he loved jazz, then i put a 13 — a minor 13 chord in there. continues strumming. but it still sounded dark in the key of a minor, so i moved it up a half—step and all of a sudden, we got... strums riff. ..and then i thought right away, "huh! "dark, dark, light, light. "what if i make it really bright?" and i moved it up a whole octave. and i went... strums riff. ..and then the minor 13 chord up here. continues strumming. then ijust said, "what else? "i'll do the voice leading." strums riff. and then back here. then i made it a little nile—like and went... strums upbeat riff. # let's dance! # put on your red shoes and dance the blues. # let's dance! # to the song they're playing on the radio... but, in a sense, you started with, materially speaking, nothing, because if we go back to a world before david bowie and daft punk and madonna and sister sledge and durane said to people that you were born into the underclass in new york city in 1952. you were born in segregation—era america but you were raised in the ultimate bohemian household. my mom was incredible. a really smart woman. she was the most open—minded, fun, loving person that you could imagine. we'll come on to your biological dad, nile rodgers senior, but she raised you with the help of this remarkable man, bobby glanzrock, ajewish beatnik. yeah. and thinking about the 1950s in america, a mixed—race partnership like that was pretty rare, wasn't it? it was extremely rare. but what's really interesting is that the jewish and the black communities were really closely aligned because of the garment industry... yeah. ..the food industry. you were raised by heroin addicts — you know, both your parents, your stepfather and also your biologicalfather, nile rodgers senior, were drug addicts — so, for you, the extraordinary was quite ordinary. just give us a sense of what it was like in the ho