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Every bubble and chuck on the guitar speaks to a history of local musical innovation.
Tour through this history of rhythm guitar, and the innovations of Chic legendNile Rodgersloom large.
The first song Id like to put under your microscope is Dua Lipas Levitating.
Cory Wong: That track is amazing.
Dua Lipa is incredible.
I would like to play for her someday.
For that song, rhythm guitarwise, it stands out because its a certain texture.
They kind of took the Nile Rodgers chord-comping thing, they just took outthe chucks.
There has been a journey to pave the way for this role of the guitar in pop music.
But as far as the lineage of that sort of thing, it feels like it comes from Nile.
So to me, that sort of guitar playing is all part of the same lineage.
And every artist, every producers interpretation of those things is very different.
And theyre like, No, no, no, no, no.
Thats not the Nile thing.
The Nile thing is this.
Im thinking,Oh, really?
[Pause] But Im not actually saying that out loud.
Im saying, Oh, okay.
What is it about the Nile Rodgers thing that youre looking for?
What is it about this player that we keep coming back to?
It stretches beyond just him as a guitar player.
Hes a big part of that sound as a producer.
But I think because he has producer ears, he has songwriter ears.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
