Songfacts®:

• When you're crazy about someone, grammar goes out the window. That's what's happening in "Ain't Nobody" when Chaka Khan ignores what she learned in English class to sing about a man who makes her feel so good, no other can come close: "Ain't nobody loves me better."
  
  Chaka has a huge voice and loads of dynamic range, so this song is right in her wheelhouse. The verses are restrained, but when she hits the chorus it's the vocal equivalent of the drop on a roller coaster.
• Rufus keyboard player David "Hawk" Wolinski wrote the song. He was working in his studio when he came up with the ear-catching intro, which he called a "goofy, crazy thing." That became the basis for the song, which takes some strange turns musically. "I didn't want the bass to hit at the same time as the bass drum," he explained in the Billboard Book Of #1 R&B Hits. "I tried to write this really weird thing. As soon as I came up with the idea, the rest of the song fell down immediately."
• Early in the band's career, Roger Linn nearly joined Rufus as a touring guitarist. Later, "Ain't Nobody" became one of the first songs ever written to the beat of his invention - the LM-1 Drum, the world's first programmable, sampled-sound drum machine. In this case the machine was used to create the keyboard loop. John Robinson played live drums and overdubbed the fills.
  
  As for why Linn didn't join Rufus, he explained: "Into Rufus' fame, I auditioned for touring guitarist and was accepted. However, I rejected their offer because they weren't paying enough. I was never asked about singing."
• The song almost landed on Michael Jackson's Thriller album. Its writer, David "Hawk" Wolinski, played his demo for various friends in the industry to get feedback, and apparently Quincy Jones, who was producing Thriller, heard the song and asked for it. Wolinski had committed the song to Rufus, though, even though some members didn't like it (they held a vote and decided to record it). And when their record label, Warner Bros., decided not to release it as a single, Wolinski played the Thriller card, telling them he'd give the song to Michael Jackson if they didn't.
• "Ain't Nobody" was the last hit for the group before they broke up in 1983. It went to #1 on the R&B chart in October that year. The following year, Chaka Khan topped that chart as a solo act with "I Feel For You."
• In 1989 a remixed version by Frankie Knuckles reached #6 in the UK.
• In 1997 rapper LL Cool J topped the UK chart (#46 in US) with his interpolation of "Ain't Nobody." It became a hit after being featured in the movie Beavis And Butthead Do America.
• In 2003 the British pop band Liberty X reached #3 in the UK with "Be Nobody," a merging of the lyrics from "Ain't Nobody" and the music from Human League's "Being Boiled."
• The 12-year-old British singer Jasmine Thompson recorded a cover in 2013 after she was discovered singing on YouTube. Her version was featured in a TV commercial for Sainsbury's and charted in the Top 40 of the UK singles chart.