Lori Majewski on Nile Rodgers and Chic

September 4, 2025

Lori Majewski’s put together a few reasons why you should be just as pumped to see them perform.  Learn more about why she is dubbing them as “your favorite 80s band’s favorite 80s band”

By Lori Majewski  

On board the 2025 80s Cruise, I was standing in the crowd on the Promenade when the 2026 acts were being revealed. Then Nile Rodgers & Chic appeared on the screen, and I screamed like a maniac. They are easily one of my favorite live acts ever. Talk about tight—talk about funky! Talk about hits!

However, I saw the confusion on some cruisers’ faces, which was vocalized by the cruiser standing next to me: “Weren’t Chic a 70s disco band?” The answer is yes, but they are so much more. Let me put it to you straight, no hyperbole: Without Chic — and especially Rodgers — some of our favorite 80s acts and songs simply would not exist.

Chic is your favorite 80s band’s favorite 80s band. Numerous groups were formed at the end of the seventies and in the eighties because its members bonded over a desire to replicate Chic’s rhythm section. And then there’s Rodgers, who, on his own, is a legendary guitar god (he jammed with Jimi Hendrix!) and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-certified musical architect of our favorite decade.

I’ve seen Rodgers play with Chic more times than I can count on their own and as Duran Duran’s tour-mates for the past half-decade. So, I feel comfortable making this prediction: Nile Rodgers & Chic will be a 2026 80s Cruise favorite. Not only do they perform the CHIC classics that inspired the likes of Duran Duran, INXS, ABC, 80s-era David Bowie, and countless others, but the Nile Rodgers & Chic setlist runs the gamut of mega-hits that Rodgers produced and co-wrote with the likes of Bowie, Madonna, Diana Ross, and more.    

Got your attention? I hope so! Here are some more things to know about Nile Rodgers & Chic: 

Without Chic’s “Good Times,” we wouldn’t have the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.”  

Back during the wild west era of hip-hop, Sugarhill sampled “Good Times,” making it the backdrop for 1979’s “Rapper’s Delight,” which is only one of the most important hip-hop songs of all time. Why? As the first rap single to enter the Top 40 on Billboard‘s Hot 100, it took this culture-changing music form from the Boogie Down Bronx and introduced it to the world. Decades later, Rodgers now tips his hat to the track by “rappin’ to the beat” whenever Chic plays “Good Times” live. With both groups on board the 2026 80s Cruise, could there be historic collaboration in the making?! 

Rodgers’ 80s credits are a Who’s Who of the decade.

Rodgers produced Madonna’s Like a Virgin album, which took her from club artist to superstar. His work with INXS on their song “Original Sin” (Rodgers recruited Daryl Hall for backing vocals) led him to produce Duran Duran, whom he calls “Chic’s baby-brother band.” (After remixing Duran’s first number one in the U.S., “The Reflex,” Rodgers produced “The Wild Boys,” along with numerous subsequent singles and albums). In addition, he’s worked with Debbie Harry, Diana Ross, Bryan Ferry, Thompson Twins (Rodgers performed onstage with the Twins and Madonna at 1985’s Live Aid), Sister Sledge, The B’52s, and many more. Oh, and Johnny Marr, founding guitarist of The Smiths—he named his son Nile after guess who? 

David Bowie changed Nile Rodgers’ life — and vice versa.

On January 10, 2016, my husband woke me with the words: “David Bowie died.” As shocked and shattered as I was, I jumped out of bed and ran to my desk (above which was a giant framed photo of Ziggy-era Bowie) to pay tribute to him. Forty minutes later, I was on the phone with Rodgers, and we were processing the immense loss together. ” When people ask me about the most important people in my musical world,” Rodgers began, “one, of course, was my musical partner, Bernard Edwards, with whom I formed Chic; the other was David Bowie.” He nicknamed Bowie “the Picasso of Rock and Roll.” In the early 80s, after the glitter of Chic’s series of dance-floor smashes settled, “I was persona non grata… No one would work with me because of ‘Disco Sucks,’ [and] this guy, who was considered one of the great, innovative rockers, picked a disco guy, who nobody wanted to work with, to collaborate with. And we ended up making the biggest record of his career, Let’s Dance.”  

For Rodgers, it was Grammys-Come-Lately

Like Bowie, Rodgers didn’t win his first Grammy until decades after he started working in music. While Bowie’s came posthumously (in 2017, for his final album and the title track from it, Blackstar), Rodgers finally snagged three major awards in 2013, sharing Grammy gold with Daft Punk for their Album of the Year (Random Access Memories), as well as Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for the song that was inspired by Rodgers and Chic: “Get Lucky.” (Rodgers has since worked with Lady Gaga, Aviici, Kygo, and more.) He received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023.  

The 80s Cruise is an intimate gig for Nile Rodgers & Chic.

This band is a major “get” for The 80s Cruise. In 2017, they played the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury, one of world’s biggest annual festivals, with an estimated 120,000 people in the audience (this was a promotion from the 2013 festival where Rodgers and Chic headlined the Holts stage and wowed 30,000). I was in London in 2022 when Duran Duran and Nile Rodgers & Chic played to 65,000 people of all ages in the city’s Hyde Park. A festival favorite, the group is also known as an act that brings the party, so they’ve been recruited for multiple tours with Duran, as well as Cher and Earth Wind & Fire. So, get ready to “get lucky,” 80s Cruisers! No wonder Nile Rodger & Chic are playing the first-ever 80s Cruise concert on land — and for all of us simultaneously! Good times, indeed!