Nile Rodgers Net Worth: Chic, Drugs & Cancer Prognosis

He’s the legendary mind behind the likes of Chic and hundreds of the world’s favourite songs, but what is Nile Rodgers‘ net worth?

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Nile Rodgers’ net worth equates to $70 million – £56.8 million.

What is his background?..

Nile Gregory Rodgers Jr. was born on born September 19, 1952 in the Lower East Side in New York City.

Nile’s mum, Beverley, had her son when she was just 14; she fell pregnant the first time she had sex.

His father, Nile Rodgers Sr., was a traveling percussionist, specialising in Afro-Cuban beats. As can be imagined, he was often absent from Nile’s childhood, although he does claim that his father was influential to his life.

Nile Rodgers Sr. passed away in 1970, prior to which Nile had only seen him a ‘handful’ of times.

His mother married Bobby Glanzrock in 1959. The pair were addicted to heroin and consequently, Nile started using drugs when he was just 13 years old.

His introduction to music…

Although he is now best known for playing the guitar, Nile originally played the flute and the clarinet.

He learnt guitar at 16 and went on to play with Persian, Boogaloo, African, jazz and Latin bands.

As a teenager, he also went on to become a subsection leader of the Lower Manhattan branch of the New York Black Panther Party.

Whilst working as a touring musician for the Sesame Street stage show in 1970, Nile met bassist, Bernard Edwards.

They decided to form The Big Apple Band and were back up musicians for the group New York City.

After the band parted ways, Nile and Bernard partnered with Tony Thompson, a drummer, to form the funk rock band, The Boys.

There was a record label that were interested in signing the band, but upon realising that all members were black, they passed, citing their reason for doing so as black rock artists are too hard to promote.

How Chic was born…

As The Big Apple Band, the pair worked with many artists including Luther Vandross! However, disaster struck as they discovered that there was another The Big Apple Band and hence were made to change their name.

From 1977 onwards, they would be known as Chic.

The band was heavily influenced by jazz, soul and funk but also infused a European melody to their music.

Their first single, ‘Dance, Dance, Dance’ was recorded with Luther Vandross on vocals. It was originally released by Buddah Records but it was re-released by Atlantic in 1977 due to the single’s success.

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Nile and Bernard wrote more songs and released an album, ‘Chic’ with Atlantic that winter.

Thanks to hit singles such as ‘Le Freak’, ‘Good Times’ and ‘Everybody Dance’, disco became more popular than ever before. In 1979, the single ‘Disco Sucks’ was released as a protest against the music style, but that didn’t stop ‘Good Times’ from being a number one single.

Chic’s initial success encouraged Atlantic records to allow Nile and Bernard to produce one of their current acts. The pair chose Sister Sledge and the 1979 album, ‘We Are Family’, went to number three and stayed on the charts into 1980.

How the Disco backlash affected Nile Rodgers’ net worth…

The disco backlash affected the founders of Chic in different ways. Bernard ran away from work and Nile increased his drug use.

Together they created their last Atlantic record under their contract, ‘Believer’ (1982).

Some of their last projects together were Diana Ross’ album, ‘Diana’; Debbie Harry’s solo album, ‘Koo Koo’; and their song, ‘Good Times’ was placed on The Sugarhill Gang’s ‘Rapper’s Delight’ – the first ever multiple-platinum hip hop single.

The disbandment of Chic gave Nile more time to work with other artists. He worked on David Bowie’s biggest album, ‘Let’s Dance’; Madonna’s album, ‘Like A Virgin’; as well as lots of Duran Duran’s work.

In 1985, Nile produced albums for Sheena Easton, Mick Jagger and the Thompson Twins. That year, Billboard named him the number one singles producer in the world.

Later in the decade he produced for more artists, including Grace Jones, Cyndi Lauper and B-52.

He also composed his first orchestral soundtrack for the movie, Coming to America.

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The death of Bernard Edwards…

In 1992, Chic were reunited and released the album, Chic-Ism.

However, their new success was short-lived as Nile found Bernard’s dead body on April 17th, 1996.

Nile has revealed that when the co-founder of Chic passed away, he

‘cried like a baby and suffered intensely but eventually realised the best tribute to him would be to carry on and be the best I could be’.

In 1999 Live at the Budokan, a live recording of Edwards’ final performance, was released by Nile. He decided that the album shouldn’t be overdubbed or changed, so that the recording remains pure.

His new music direction…

Nile founded Sumthing Else Music Works record label and Sumthing Distribution, an independent music label distributor, in 1998. The company’s focus was on distributing video game soundtracks. It released the world’s first 5.1 surround DVD game-soundtrack album which include the complete Halo and Resident Evil as well as Gears of War.

In the early 2000s, Nile focussed on creating music that was for films and video games.

For example, he both composed and produced the soundtracks for Beverly Hills Cop III,  The Flintstones, Rush Hour 2, Snow Dogs, and Semi-Pro. The film starred Will Ferrell, and together the pair wrote the title song ‘Love Me Sexy’.

Video Source/ YouTube

Other work…

Continuing with his different music styles, Nile worked with Lady Gaga to remake the Chic hit single, ‘I Want Your Love’. The pair worked on the song for Tom Ford’s Spring/ Summer 2016 collection video (rather than a catwalk show).

In 2012, Nile and Daft Punk announced that they would be working together for their new album, ‘Random Access Memories’.

The album’s single, ‘Get Lucky’ – which was co-written by Pharrell Williams and Nile, with Pharrell’s vocals – went to number three on the UK Singles Chart in less than 24 hours and went to number one two weeks later. Nile said:

‘I’ve had big records and Number 1s; I have had records that were Number 1 in the United States but nowhere else…

‘I’ve had records which have done well [in the UK], but not in the States. But to have this ubiquitous record, that is a hit everywhere… It’s amazing to me! I’m out on the road and I can hear it wherever I go. I’m flabbergasted!’

The song is now recognised as one of the UK’s biggest selling singles of all time.

We Are Family Foundation…

After the September 11th attacks, Nile gathered more than 200 musicians and celebrities together to record ‘We Are Family’.

The new version of the song was recorded at The Record Plant in Los Angeles as well as the same location in New York that the original song was recorded.

The song had an 80-minute documentary, The Making and Meaning of We Are Family, which was directed by Danny Schechter; a music video directed by Spike Lee; and a children’s music video from Disney, Nickelodeon and PBS. The latter of which was aired on the events sixth month anniversary to promote diversity and tolerance.

Nile and his partner, Nancy, decided to found the We Are Family Foundation in July 2002. It is a non-profit organisation that encourages the vision of a global family, the aim is:

‘cultural diversity while nurturing and mentoring the vision, talents, and ideas of young people who are positively changing the world’.

His health…

In the early 1990s, Nile woke up to discover that he was in the hospital as his heart had stopped EIGHT times.

Nile decided to stop using both drugs and alcohol in 1994, after his friends showed him a tape that revealed how poor his stage performances was becoming.

In October 2010 he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. In 2013, he was given the all-clear. However, in 2017 he discovered he had a growth on his right kidney. It turned out to be two different cancers within one mass; it was removed in November 2017.

At the 2019 Hollywood Bowl, he revealed that he is ‘100% cancer free’.