'Music gives people hope." Nile Rodgers understands this statement better than most.
The 63-year-old grew up the son of drug-addicted parents, dragged from pillar to post across the East Coast of the United States, but it was his love of jazz and rhythm and blues music that helped him escape poverty, leading him to become a defining figure of the late-1970s disco era with his stylish funk troupe Chic.
Spat out by the music industry as the subsequent "Disco Sucks" backlash took hold, belief in music's power restored his confidence: He was soon writing and producing hits for David Bowie, Madonna and Diana Ross. When he fought off the prostate cancer he was diagnosed with in 2010, he did so in the knowledge his life-affirming music was in the middle of a reappraisal it richly deserved.
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