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".
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. In the early 1970s, the family moved to the United States, when Don Cherry taught at Dartmouth College. 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.
Music career
Early career
Cherry moved to the United Kingdom in the midst of the punk era, where she says she found "her people". She and Ari lived in a squat in Battersea, while the band invited Don Cherry to tour with them, Prince Hammer, and Creation Rebel. 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.
Man
thumb|upright|Cherry performing in [[Vienna in 1996]]
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.
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.
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. 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 Most of the tracks were recorded together live.
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."
Cherry has said she does not really think of herself as a rapper, but as a "singer that does a bit of rapping".
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 Andi Oliver for BBC Two. Neneh and Andi appeared on Gordon Ramsay's television series The F-Word as part of the amateur brigade.
In 2016 she starred in Stockholm, My Love, a drama film and musical film. Set in Stockholm, it features music by the likes of Benny Andersson from ABBA.
Cherry, a short documentary about Neneh Cherry, was released by The Face magazine on YouTube on 23 March 2022.
In 2024 Cherry published an autobiography, A Thousand Threads. The book was shortlisted for the 2025 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction.
Personal life
In 1983, Cherry married drummer Bruce Smith and had a daughter. They divorced in 1984.
In 1986, Cherry met producer and Morgan-McVey member Cameron "Booga Bear" McVey at London's Heathrow Airport. Cherry and McVey were en route to Japan as fashion models as part of designer Ray Petri's Buffalo Posse. Cherry proposed, and the couple married in 1990. Cherry and McVey have two daughters: singers Tyson, born in 1989 (also known as Lolita Moon), and Mabel, born in 1996. was the daughter whom Cherry was pregnant with on Top of the Pops in 1988 and is featured in the "Manchild" video, while the latter is the singer who has collaborated on singles with Clean Bandit, Tiësto and Joel Corry.
Cherry and Cameron McVey have a collaborative work relationship: McVey produced and co-wrote Raw Like Sushi. Together they have supported a variety of British acts and they were in the group cirKus together, with Cameron McVey known as Burt Ford and Tyson as Lolita Moon during this time. Cherry has a stepson, Marlon Roudette (former frontman of Mattafix), via McVey's prior relationship with Vonnie Roudette.
thumb|right|Cherry in [[Stockholm, February 2013]]
The family has a country house near Birmingham and Wolverhampton, apartments in London and Stockholm, plus the family home in the old schoolhouse in Skåne County that she and her half-brother inherited when their mother died in 2009.
Style
Since the late 1980s, Cherry has frequently worked with the stylist and jewelry designer Judy Blame.
On her street style, Cherry cites LL Cool J as an influence, as well as the photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Judy Blame, and designer Ray Petri.
Neneh Cherry speaks English and Swedish fluently.
Discography
thumb|Cherry performing in 2012
- Raw Like Sushi (1989)
- Homebrew (1992)
- Man (1996)
- Blank Project (2014)
- Broken Politics (2018)
- The Versions (2022)
Awards
AIM Independent Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 2024
| Herself
| Innovator Award
|
|
Brit Awards
|-
| style="text-align:left;" rowspan="3"|1990
| rowspan="2" | Herself
| Best International Breakthrough
| rowspan="2"
|-
| Best International Solo Artist
|-
| "Manchild"
| Best Video
| rowspan="3"
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1991
| rowspan="2" | Herself
| rowspan="2" | Best International Female
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1997
D&AD Awards
!Ref.
|-
| rowspan=2|1991
| rowspan=2|"I've Got You Under My Skin"
| Direction
|
|
|-
| Photography
|
|
Danish Music Awards
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1995
| "7 Seconds"
| Best International Single
|
Grammy Awards
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1990
| Herself
| Best New Artist
|
Grammis
|-
| 1990
| rowspan=2|Herself
| Best Female Pop/Rock Artist
|
|-
| 1993
| Best Modern Dance
|
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2013
| The Cherry Thing
| Jazz Recording of the Year
|
|-
| 2019
| Broken Politics
| Best Electronic/Dance
|
Ivor Novello Awards
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1990
| "Buffalo Stance"
| International Hit of the Year
|
|-
| 1995
| "7 Seconds"
| International Hit of the Year
|
MTV Europe Music Awards
|-
| style="text-align:left;" rowspan="2"|1994
| "7 Seconds"
| Best Song
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|Herself
| rowspan="2"| Best Female
|
|-
| 1996
|
MTV Video Music Awards
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1989
| "Buffalo Stance"
| Best New Artist
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1991
| rowspan="2" | "I've Got You Under My Skin"
| Best Special Effects
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | Best Female Video
|
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|1993
| "Buddy X"
|
Music & Media Year-End Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1989
| Raw Like Sushi
| Debut Album of the Year
|
|
NME Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 2022
| Herself
| Icon Award
|
|
Nordic Music Prize
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2014
| Blank Project
| Album of the Year
|
Rober Awards Music poll
|-
| 2012
| "Dream Baby Dream" (with The Thing)
| Best Cover Version
|
|-
| 2014
| Herself
| Best R&B
|
Silver Clef Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 2023
| Herself
| Outstanding Achievement Award
|
|
Smash Hits Poll Winners Party
|-
| 1989
| Herself
| Most Promising New Solo Artist
|
UK Video Music Awards
|-
| rowspan="2"|2018
| rowspan="2"|"Kong"
| Best Styling in a Video
|
|-
| Best Color Grading in a Video
|
See also
- Swedish hip hop
- List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. dance chart