Dionne Warwick talks Twitter, Chance the Rapper and upcoming holiday concert

A twelvemonth ago, singer Dionne Warwick, the performer down specified popular classics arsenic “Walk On By” and “I Say a Little Prayer,” logged onto Twitter to inquire a question, 1 that had seemingly been connected her caput for days.

“Hi, @Chancetherapper,” she wrote to the hip-hop prima and – considering the nationalist quality of Twitter — the remainder of the world. “If you are precise evidently a rapper wherefore did you enactment it successful your signifier name? I cannot halt reasoning astir this.”

Twitter and a ample swath of the net couldn’t get enough.

“Mom that’s it!” wrote her lad Damon Elliott. “As soon arsenic this quarantine is implicit I’m taking your iPhone distant from you. Time to spell backmost to a flip phone.”

Chance the Rapper chimed successful next: “Sorry I’m inactive freaking retired that u cognize who I am. This is amazing!”

That 1 tweet yet led to this: “Nothing’s Impossible,” a caller azygous by Warwick released Nov. 26, written by her lad Damon, and featuring Chance the Rapper. Rapping, obviously.

“The relation with Chance came due to the fact that of the Twitter that I did,” Warwick says connected a telephone telephone from her location successful New Jersey successful beforehand of her performance Friday, Dec. 17 astatine Fantasy Springs Resort Casino successful Indio. “Which got america to go friends, basically, implicit the phone.

“And I fto him cognize I was doing this opus — it’s a foundation song, benefitting Operation Smile and a fewer others that we felt we could bash immoderate bully for,” she says.

“I sent him the song; helium fell successful emotion with it. And I conjecture the remainder you would accidental is his- and herstory.”

For Warwick, who turns 81 connected Sunday, Dec. 12, it’s each portion of her late-career renaissance arsenic a popular civilization icon. In 2020, Warwick appeared connected “The Masked Singer” arsenic the Mouse.

That aforesaid year, aft deciding to walk much clip connected Twitter, Warwick attracted tens of thousands of caller followers, drawn to her relationship for the frank and often precise comic dependable she’s cultivated there.

“Please bash not bring that foolishness into 2021,” she tweeted astir 2020, and her tweet — oregon “twote,” arsenic she calls them — was 1 that Twitter promoted connected billboards.

Earlier this year, Warwick was nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, astir which she had immoderate feelings.

“Do you truly privation to cognize what I thought astir it?” she asks. “What took them truthful long?”

Not that she expected it oregon adjacent truly cared, Warwick adds.

“I don’t see myself stone and roll, that’s the archetypal thing,” she says. “So it truly didn’t substance whether they nominated maine oregon not. I had nary existent thought that I’d ever beryllium successful the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.”

“Saturday Night Live” was paying attraction to each of this, and yet created a recurring sketch with formed subordinate Ego Nwodim portraying Warwick arsenic a speech amusement host.

In November, Warwick joined Nwodim successful a caller installment of the sketch, the 2 duetting connected “What the World Needs Now Is Love.”

This week, Warwick was honored with a prima connected the Palm Springs Walk of Stars, and a documentary connected her life, “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over,” which premiered astatine the Toronto International Film Festival successful September, was announced arsenic the opening nighttime enactment for the Palm Springs International Film Festival successful January 2022.

“I deliberation it’s fun,” Warwick says. “It’s a portion of life, a portion of growth. I’m having a fantastic time, and apparently, each those I’m reaching are having a bully time, too.”

Warwick’s vocation skyrocketed successful the mid-’60s acknowledgment to her predominant collaborations with songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Songs specified arsenic “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” and “This Girl’s In Love With You,” each cracked the Top 10, with the second 2 earning her the archetypal and 2nd of her six Grammy Awards.

“What we had, what we did best, was Burt with his melodies, Hal with his unthinkable lyrics,” Warwick says. “And I was the conduit successful which they expressed them.”

But don’t expect to perceive many, if any, of those numbers during her Fantasy Springs show, which is simply a vacation event, featuring Warwick with a 14-piece drawstring conception connected numbers she’s recorded connected a brace of Christmas albums.

“There are going to beryllium precise fewer of the recordings that radical are accustomed to proceeding maine sing,” Warwick says. “And mostly each Christmas songs.

“I’d emotion to perceive to Christmas euphony each twelvemonth agelong if I could,” she says. “It’s a feel-good country of music. Words that mean something, melodies that are casual to retrieve and sing.”

As for her relation arsenic Queen of Twitter, Warwick has continued to usage her level for immoderate strikes her fancy.

She spent a bully portion of 2021 doing conflict with Big Mayo — tweeting shots crossed the bows of Kraft and Hellman’s mayonnaise successful mock oregon existent fearfulness astatine immoderate of the recipes they’d promoted for their creamy product.

But she besides interacts with fans, retweeting oregon complimenting them connected their successes, oregon scolding them arsenic needed.

When Taylor Swift’s caller mentation of “All Too Well” rekindled the aged statement implicit Swift’s breakup with Jake Gyllenhaal — a scarf helium supposedly borrowed and ne'er returned astatine the halfway of it — Warwick went viral again past month.

“If that young antheral has Taylor’s scarf helium should instrumentality it,” she tweeted connected Nov. 15. “It does not beryllium to you. Box it up and I volition wage the outgo of postage, Jake.”

“I person a batch of fun,” Warwick says of Twitter. “I’m capable to benignant of crook people’s thoughts around, due to the fact that earlier I got on, I was looking astatine what they were tweeting to each other, and it wasn’t precise pleasant.

“I deliberation the beingness of a grownup, which I hap to be, benignant of made a difference,” she says. “You benignant of announcement that it’s thing that is present starting to go much palatable.

“It’s a mode of saying precisely the aforesaid happening with a smile.”