Hello Happiness

Hello Happiness is the twelfth studio album by American singer Chaka Khan, released on February 15, 2019. It is her first new material since 2007's Funk This. It includes the 2018 single "Like Sugar", and the second single, the title track "Hello Happiness". "Hello Happiness" was first performed at the 2019 Rose Parade in Pasadena, California. The front cover photograph is Khan at 8525 Sepulveda Boulevard, Los Angeles, California.

Background
Khan stated that she did not stop making music following the release of Funk This but "simply stopped releasing material", and also needed time to recover following the death of recording artist Prince in 2016, which she has said made her "rethink" herself and admit herself into rehab for addiction to prescription drugs.

Music
The album features both a "contemporary" feeling as well as "strong echoes of the past, such as the late '70s New York disco scene". About the lyrics of the title track, Khan said: "I think we need a shot of just not taking the little things so seriously. Little things are important. It's about the little things, but just flow." Khan co-wrote all the tracks on the album.

Critical reception
Hello Happiness received generally favorable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 68 based on six reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Damien Morris, writing for Observer, called Hello Happiness a "vital calling card to remind everyone to come hear this unearthly voice, still sizzling with spice. Producer Switch sashays through a bunch of styles, taking on orchestral disco, blues, funk and even a little dubstep with a bright confidence."

Slant Magazines Zachary Hoskins wrote that while "sometimes the production steals the spotlight a little too much [...] much of the credit for Hello Happinesss relentlessly good vibes goes to co-producers Switch and singer-songwriter Sarah Ruba Taylor, who plunder the sounds of Khan's 1970s and ’80s output for a mélange of styles and textures." Michael Cragg from The Guardian felt that the album "pays respect to Khan’s funk and disco heydays, drawing a through-line via modern production’s showy window dressing."

AllMusic editor Andy Kellman wrote: "Khan is uninhibited and impassioned, as always. Even when a surplus of synthesizers, organs, and flame-throwing guitars threaten to overtake her elsewhere, she cuts straight through with full-tilt, life-affirming power." Exclaim! noted that "Khan hasn't lost her magic. But in an attempt to do it all, Hello Happiness loses its way [...] Without something steady to anchor it all, Hello Happiness sound less like an album and more like a compilation of stand-alones." Chicago Tribune critic Greg Kot found that "at 65, Khan remains a robust-yet-pliant singer and percussionist [..] "Sugar" carved out a path to the dancefloor, but it also made Khan sound like a heavily filtered singer-for-hire as she belted out the hook. The song anchors "Hello Happiness," and the remaining six tracks are essentially more of the same". Pitchfork's Jackson Howard felt that the "album largely ignores all the qualities that made the Queen of Funk a legend in the first place [...] Instead of emphasizing the live instrumentation, hair-raising harmonies, and goosebump-inducing modulations of Funk This, the 2007 album anchored by longtime collaborators Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis that maximized her talents, Hello Happiness is a messy, overproduced, anonymous set of hotel-lobby beats that makes woeful use of one of the greatest voices of all time.

Commercial performance
Hello Happiness debuted and peaked at number 18 on the UK Albums Chart in the week of February 28, 2019, becoming Khan's highest-charting album since 1984's I Feel for You.