Neneh Mariann Karlsson (; born 10 March 1964), better known as Neneh Cherry, is a Swedish singer. Her musical career started in the early 1980s, in London, England, where she performed in a number of punk and post-punk bands in her youth, including the Slits and Rip Rig + Panic.
Cherry has released six studio albums under her own name. Her first, Raw Like Sushi, was released in 1989 and peaked at number two on the UK Albums Chart, thanks in large part to the worldwide hit single "Buffalo Stance". Her second studio album was 1992's Homebrew. Four years later she released Man (1996), with her next studio album, Blank Project, coming in 2014. Her most recent album, The Versions, was released in 2022. In addition to releasing these studio albums, she formed the band cirKus in 2006 and has collaborated with the Thing, releasing an album entitled The Cherry Thing in 2012. Cherry has won two Brit Awards and an MTV Europe Music Award (with Youssou N'Dour). She has also been nominated for a Grammy Award.
Early life and family Cherry was born Neneh Mariann Karlsson in Stockholm, Sweden, the daughter of Monika "Moki" Karlsson (1943–2009), a Swedish painter and textile artist, and the musician Ahmadu Jah (1936–2018). Jah was born in Sierra Leone, West Africa, the son of a tribal chief, and went to Stockholm to study engineering at university.
Her parents separated soon after her birth and her mother married the American jazz musician Don Cherry, who helped raise Neneh. She took her stepfather's surname. Her half-brother, musician Eagle-Eye Cherry, was born when she was four. From stepfather Don Cherry's side, she has a stepsister, violinist Jan Cherry, and a stepbrother, jazz musician David Ornette Cherry. Through her father Ahmadu Jah's marriage to Maylen Jah (née Bergström), Cherry is the half-sister of singer Titiyo and record producer Cherno Jah.
In 1970, Cherry's parents, Moki and Don Cherry, bought and converted an old Swedish schoolhouse in rural Tågarp in Landskrona. In the early 1970s, the family moved to the United States, when Don Cherry taught at Dartmouth College. They lived for a time in the Hotel Chelsea, before, in 1977, the family bought a Long Island City warehouse loft above Talking Heads members Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, whom they befriended.
As a child, Cherry's stepfather would have musicians over to jam, while her mother would paint the house and make clothes, costumes, and tapestries. Cherry said she would sing while her stepfather played the piano, and would often wander into neighbours' apartments with her brother to hear them playing music.
Cherry dropped out of school at the age of 14 and moved to London, England, in the late 1970s. Aged 15, she met the Slits while joining her stepfather on his tour with them, and moved into a squat in Battersea with bandmember Ari Up. Her first job at Better Badges involved making pin badges and zines. She also helped staple copies of the first issue of I-D magazine.
Music career Early career Cherry moved to the United Kingdom in the midst of the punk era, where she says she found "her people". Cherry met Tessa Pollitt, Viv Albertine and Ari Up from the Slits as her stepfather, Don Cherry, was touring with them and took the 15-year-old Neneh along. She and Ari lived in a squat in Battersea, while the band invited Don Cherry to tour with them, Prince Hammer, and Creation Rebel.
In London, Cherry joined the punk rock band the Cherries. She moved through several bands, including the Slits, New Age Steppers, Rip Rig + Panic, and Float Up CP. She also DJ'd, playing early rap music on the reggae pirate Dread Broadcasting Corporation, based in West London. Cherry has stated that she found her voice singing along with Poly Styrene from X-Ray Spex.
Albums Raw Like Sushi
Cherry began a solo career in 1982 with "Stop the War", a protest song about the Falklands War. She worked with Jonny Dollar, the The and Cameron McVey (a.k.a. Booga Bear), who co-wrote most of her 1989 debut album Raw Like Sushi, and whom she later married. She was intimately involved in the Bristol Urban Culture scene, working as an arranger on Massive Attack's Blue Lines album, through which she met Dollar. Both Robert Del Naja and Andrew Vowles of Massive Attack contributed to Raw Like Sushi.
The single "Buffalo Stance" eventually peaked at number 3 on the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100, and number 1 on the US Dance chart. More singles released between 1988 and 1990 included "Manchild", "Kisses on the Wind", "Heart", and "Inna City Mama". She also found success with "I've Got You Under My Skin", a reworking of the Cole Porter song, which appeared on the Red Hot + Blue AIDS fundraising album. The single reached number 25 in the UK. Cherry was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1990 in the Best New Artist category (but lost to Milli Vanilli who eventually had their award revoked). She won a Brit Award in 1990 for Raw Like Sushi.
Cherry caused a press furore when she performed "Buffalo Stance" on Top of the Pops while pregnant (with her second child, Tyson).
Homebrew
Cherry's second album was 1992's Homebrew. Homebrew was not as commercially successful as its predecessor. The album had some success on various Billboard charts with the songs "Buddy X" and "Trout".
"Buddy X" reached number 4 on the Billboard Dance Club chart where it spent a total of 11 weeks. The track also spent some time on Billboards Pop Songs chart as well as the Hot 100 chart, where it peaked at number 22 during its 8-week run and peaked at number 43 in its 12-week run, respectively.
The music video for "Buddy X" earned Cherry an MTV VMA nomination at the ceremony in 1993 for the Best Female Video category, alongside Janet Jackson, Annie Lennox, and k.d. lang, with lang winning the moonman.
"Trout" features additional vocals by R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe who helped to co-write the track along with Cherry, McVey, and Jonathan Sharp and contains samples of a guitar riff from Steppenwolf as well as drums by John Bonham. With airplay on college radio and increased popularity, "Trout" spent a total of 14 weeks on Billboards Alternative chart where it reached number 2.
Homebrew also included the work of Geoff Barrow (on "Somedays"), who later became part of Portishead.
Additional recognition was attributed to remixes of "Buddy X". First was the 1993 remix by The Notorious BIG, which is considered by some to be "one of the great Biggie rarities in the world." Cherry stated that she and McVey picked up Biggie for the studio where they remained for the session. The song was completed in one take. "Buddy X" found success yet again in the 1999 UK garage remix by Dreem Teem.
"Move with Me" was co-written by Cherry, McVey and Lenny Kravitz.Album booklet.
Man
1996's Man is a solo record produced by McVey, Jonny Dollar and Christian Falk. The lead track is "Woman", her take on James Brown's 1966 track "It's a Man's Man's Man's World." It featured the worldwide hit single, "7 Seconds", featuring Youssou N'Dour; and "Trouble Man" a cover of a Marvin Gaye track. Another track, "Together Now", featured Tricky.
In France, "7 Seconds" made number one for a record 16 weeks in 1994. The song earned Cherry her second Grammy nomination and an MTV Europe Music Award for Best Song. Remixes, a French remix album of Man songs, was released in 1997.
Blank Project
Blank Project was written by Cherry and her husband McVey. Paul Simm co-wrote six tracks on the record. The record was deeply influenced by the death of her mother.
To promote the album, she toured Europe in February and March 2014. In January 2015, Cherry performed as a solo artist in New York City. Cherry is very connected to New York, as she has visited or lived there off and on since 1966.
Broken Politics
Broken Politics, her second album to be produced by Four Tet, was released on 19 October 2018, and has been called "quieter and more reflective" than Blank Project by Cherry. The lead single, "Kong", was released earlier in August. Writing in The Guardian, Laura Snapes labeled the album "revelatory" and gave it a 5-star review.
To support the album, Cherry toured across North America, Australia and Europe in late 2018 and early 2019.
The Versions On June 10, 2022, Cherry released her next studio album, The Versions. The album features reworked and reimagined versions of her previous singles. It features vocals from Robyn and Sia.
Bands/collaborations The Cherry Bear Collective, Cherry's former company with McVey, is now called Nomad Productions and is based in west London.
CirKus
In 2006, Cherry formed a new band, cirKus, with Cameron McVey, Lolita Moon (Neneh and Cameron's daughter) and Karmil. CirKus toured Europe, with a single North American performance at the Montreal Jazz Festival in July 2006 plus a few dates in Brazil in 2008. The band's first album, Laylow, was released in France in 2006. A remixed/recorded version was released in 2007. A second CirKus album, Medicine, was released in France in March 2009.
The Cherry Thing In March 2011, Cherry collaborated with the experimental jazz group The Thing, to release the record The Cherry Thing. The Thing is a Norwegian/Swedish jazz trio, consisting of Mats Gustafsson (saxophones), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (double bass), and Paal Nilssen-Love (drums). The Thing took their name from the third track on stepfather Don Cherry's album Where Is Brooklyn?. The album The Cherry Thing was released in June 2012 and was recorded at Harder Sound Studios in London, England and Atlantis Studios in Stockholm, Sweden.
During a 1 June 2012 interview with Kirsty Lang, broadcast as part of the BBC Radio 4's Front Row daily podcast, Cherry discussed the jazz-inspired album, saying that The Thing were inspired by Cherry's stepfather's work, but that the band makes this inspiration their own. "I think that we're taking it on, to another place. I think that's really important," Cherry said. One of the songs from the album, "Golden Heart", was written by Don Cherry; Christer Bothén, a musician who played with Don Cherry, was invited to play on the album, and brought the song to their attention.
The album includes tracks originally performed by an eclectic mix of artists, including hip-hop artist MF Doom, Martina Topley-Bird Suicide, and The Stooges. Most of the tracks were recorded together live.
Other music projects Although Cherry has released only a handful of albums, she has frequently collaborated with other artists.
In 1987, she was featured on the song "Slow Train to Dawn" by The The, in a duet with Matt Johnson. She also appeared in the music video.
In 2005, she collaborated with Gorillaz on the track "Kids with Guns" from the album Demon Days.
RocketNumberNine In 2013, Cherry collaborated with London duo RocketNumberNine (named after a Sun Ra track), aka the Page Brothers – Ben and Tom Page – to record an album called MeYouWeYou. She also joined them to perform the entire album live at the Manchester International Festival in July 2013. The record is an album of 10 tracks that Cherry wrote with McVey, which they took with only vocals to RocketNumberNine, who then did their musical interpretation to all the tracks. They recorded the album live in Woodstock, New York, with Vortex. The 10 tracks were recorded in five days. Cherry calls it fearless and hardcore.
Musical style Cherry's work has covered a number of genres, including dub, electronica, free jazz, hip-hop, pop, punk, R&B, and trip-hop. She has also collaborated with a broad range of artists.
Kate Mossman of The Guardian said Cherry was "a major part of British pop history, at the centre of the 90s trip-hop underground, virtually inventing the weed-infused west London sound that eventually produced Lily Allen." Women in Pop said Cherry was responsible for "some of the greatest, most cutting-edge pop of the late 1980s and 1990s".