Prince wrote this song and released it on his second album, Prince, in 1979. Chaka Khan's version uses more instrumentation and an array of production elements that aren't present in Prince's more stripped-down original. The song is sung in the first person, so the lyrics about being in lust with someone are gender neutral and translated well to a female singer.
The distinctive rap made the song stand out - it certainly grabbed your attention when it came on the radio with the stuttering staccato. Melle Mel, who was a rapper with Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, did the rap. The previous year, he rapped on the hit "White Lines." Late in the '80s, it was very common for raps to show up in pop songs, but in 1984 rap was still very much a novelty to most listeners. The genius of this song was how it integrated Melle Mel's part without scaring off the pop audience. To do this, producer Arif Mardin specified that the rap have a theme of "Love," with no hip-hop clichés like money and cars. It was also kept short: eight lines with Mel rhyming about Chaka and how much he digs her. The stutter at the very beginning also helped, making the section more comical and less aggressive. Mardin came up with the stutter by accident. He explained to NPR: "As we were mounting the recording onto the main master, my hand slipped on the repeat machine. So it happened to be, 'Chaka-Chaka-Chaka-Chaka-Chaka-Chaka Khan,' and we said, 'Let's keep that. That's very interesting.'"
Stevie Wonder played the harmonica on this track. He recorded it the same day he attended Marvin Gaye's funeral. Wonder wrote the first hit for Chaka's band Rufus: "Tell Me Something Good."
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