Neneh Cherry
Neneh Mariann Karlsson (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈnɛ̂nːɛ marɪˈanː ˈkɑ̌ːɭsɔn]); born 10 March 1964),[3] better known as Neneh Cherry, is a Swedish singer, songwriter, rapper, occasional disc jockey and broadcaster.[4][5] Her musical career started in London in the early 1980s, 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 three on the UK Album 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, 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[edit]
Cherry was born as 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.[6]
Cherry's parents separated early and her mother married the American jazz musician Don Cherry, who helped raise Cherry since birth. Cherry took her stepfather's surname.[4] From her mother's side, Cherry also has a half-brother, musician Eagle-Eye Cherry. 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 Svalöv Municipality.[7][8] In the early 1970s, the family moved to the United States, when Don Cherry taught at Dartmouth College.[9] In 1977 the family bought a loft in New York City in the same building as Talking Heads members Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, whom they befriended.
Cherry dropped out of school at age 14 and moved to London.[10] At the age of 16, she was raped by a teenager while walking home at night.[11]
Music career[edit]
Early career[edit]
Cherry moved to the United Kingdom when she was 15, in the midst of the punk era, and she remembers finding "her people" there. Cherry had met Tessa Pollitt, Viv Albertine and Ari Up from the Slits earlier as her stepfather, Don Cherry, was touring with them and took the 15-year-old Neneh along.[12] She and Ari lived in a squat in Battersea. She felt at home, after ending up there because The Slits invited Don Cherry to go on tour with them with Prince Hammer and Creation Rebel.[7]
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.[13] She also DJ'd, playing early rap music on the reggae pirate Dread Broadcasting Corporation.[14] Cherry has stated that she found her voice singing along with Poly Styrene from X-Ray Spex. She grew up in a musical family; she remembers singing with her father at the piano.[15]
Musical style[edit]
Cherry said she has never really thought of herself as a rapper. She sees herself as a "singer that does a bit of rapping."[15]
Breaking into the U.S. music industry was not a positive experience for Cherry. She said that while "Buffalo Stance" gave her a mainstream crossover moment in the U.S., she found the American music industry stiflingly attached to labels and genre identities.[34]
Other work[edit]
In the early 1980s, Cherry was a DJ on DBC radio, Dread Broadcasting Corporation, a pirate radio station.[16]
Cherry appeared in a non-singing capacity in Big Audio Dynamite's videos for "Medicine Show" (1985), and "C'mon Every Beatbox" (1986), dancing onstage with others during the band's performance. In the late 1980s, she helped bankroll the band Massive Attack[19]
In early 2004, Cherry presented Neneh Cherry's World of Music, a six-part series broadcast on BBC Radio 2. In April 2007, she presented a six-part cookery show Neneh and Andi – Dish It Up with her friend Andrea Oliver for BBC Two. Neneh and Andi appeared on Gordon Ramsay's The F-Word as part of the amateur brigade.
In November 2013, Cherry contributed to the art project/audio book Ällp written by Lars Yngve. Singer Peps Persson contributed music, while Cherry, Björn Ranelid and a few other celebrities, all with their roots in Sweden's most southern county Skåne, recorded the book in Skånska/Scanian dialect (not "standard Swedish", aka Rikssvenska)[35][36]
In 2016 she starred in ‘’Stockholm, My Love’’ a drama film and musical film Set in Stockholm,[37][38] it features music by the likes of Benny Andersson from ABBA.[39][40][41][42]
Cherry, a short documentary about Neneh Cherry, was released by The Face magazine on YouTube on 23 March 2022.[43]