Nile Rodgers has the standard VH1 Behind The Music life story: Artistmakes hit record, artist works with diverse group of artists, artist hasrecord company problems and gets jerked for his royalites, artist has drugproblems, artist re-evaluates his life and gets clean, and, finally, artisttakes control of his business and starts his own record label.

The 46-year-old native New Yorker was, alongside Bernard Edwards, thedriving force behind the seminal disco band Chic. After the whole "discosucks" revolution of the early 1980s, Rodgers managed to parlay his discosuccess into a lucarative production career, working with artists such asDavid Bowie and Madonna.

He has certainly influenced hip-hop artists. Since The Sugarhill Gang'ssampled "Good Times" for "Rapper's Delight," rappers and R&B singers havesampled both Chic's work and his production ad naseum.

After kicking his drug habit five years ago, Rodgers took some time to gethis head together. He has emerged from the hiatus with a new independent label, Sumthing Else Musicworks, and distrbution company, Sumthing Distribution. He also plans to build a recording studio/resort on Turks and Caicos.

He has also finally come clean about his past as a Black Panther. Thishappened when Rodgers participated in a documentary about the Black PantherParty called Public Enemy by German filmmaker Jens Meurer. The filmwill be previewed at the DenverFilm Festival in November. After that, the film will either go to theatres or cable.

The film features profiles of Rogers, Bobby Seale, Kathleen Cleaver andJamal Joseph. Sumthing Else is releasing the soundtrack for the film, whichhits record stores on August 27th, and features Spontaneous, Taja Seville,Amon Rashid, We Flo, Sooth Sayer, and a Nile Rodgers cut featuring Seale.

The lead single from the set is "Frontline" from Facez of Death, the firsthip-hop act signed to Sumthing Else. The Patterson, N.J. foursomecomprises MC's Mongo Slade, Kazmanian Devil, Nook Supastar and Mooney D whowon the recent Blaze battle for signed MC's.

It is appropriate that Facez of Death have the first single to a film aboutthe Panthers. According to Rodgers, after Mooney D won the battle, he spentexactly one day flossing with his $30,000, jewel encrusted Rolex beforepawning it off and giving the money to Patterson charities.

Rodgers feels that artists and labels should be involved in the community."[As a Panther,] we believed in serving the community," he says, adding thatlabels should act the same way towards their artists. "If I believe that aperson is passionate, I'll fight a battle for a passionate person."According to Rodgers, Facez of Death are passionate about their album,spending spare moments doing their own street team work for their debutrelease which drops sometime in October.

While Rodgers abhors the idea of a separate hip-hop imprint, he has plansfor more hip-hop releases which he's keeping under his hat for the timebeing. He also has a desire to work a certain hip-hop band sometime in thefuture. "I love The Roots," he says, adding that they are real musicians."They should call me to produce. I like anything that is paying homage [to