Patrice Rushen

Patrice Rushen is one of those artists I genuinely think deserves way more mainstream recognition than she gets. She came up as a jazz prodigy out of Los Angeles, studied at USC, and then somehow managed to pivot into one of the smoothest funk and R&B careers of the early '80s without losing any of her chops — that's hard to pull off. "Forget Me Nots" is an all-time groove, and it's earned a second life through countless samples, including Will Smith's "Men in Black," which means her bassline has probably reached more ears than she'll ever get credit for. The fact that her 1982 Grammy nominations went to both a vocal performance and an instrumental in the same year tells you everything about her range. Criminally underrated, effortlessly talented.

Name (English)

Patrice Rushen

Name (Japanese)

パトリース・ラッシェン

Reading

ぱとりーす・らっしぇん

Born

September 30, 1954 (age 71)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Libra / Horse

Origin

Los Angeles, California, United States

Occupation

singer-songwriter / composer / singer / pianist / jazz musician

High school

Locke High School

University

University of Southern California

• Official sitehttps://patricerushen.com/
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice%20Rushen
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%91%E3%83%88%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B9%E3%83%BB%E3%83%A9%E3%83%83%E3%82%B7%E3%82%A7%E3%83%B3
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q454419

Tags

• California
• singer-songwriter
• composer
• singer

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.