Neneh Cherry
"When I'm singing or on stage, I become complete all of a sudden. I'm whole. I don't think I've really had that in so many other things in my life."
NENEH CHERRY
Neneh Cherry, is a Swedish African singer-songwriter raised by influential American jazz musician Don Cherry. Inspired by Punk singers like Poly Styrene and living in a squat as a teen in South London she joined punk bands like Rig Pig and Panic before making her debut album "Raw like Sushi".
Neneh Cherry was the first woman of colour that I ever saw who wasn't singing African songs and wasn't Whitney Houston. Growing up as an expat child, particularly at this time in South East Asia, there were no examples of black women on television. English speaking cable television had only been around for two years, and Neneh Cherry 1989 album was on a constant loop.
I recognised her a woman who was of some African descent, who was also strong and unapologetic about it. She sounded original and unique, and everyone loved her. Even the title of the E.P was straight in your face "Raw like Sushi". Not glossy and pop white washed like many of the artists that I knew at that time. I felt an immediate connection to her. I was a 12 years old who was desperately trying to figure out who I was, and fighting to maintain my tomboy persona while the rest of the world was trying to force me to be more feminine. Neneh was a woman who expressed herself in a way that wasn't ultra feminine, and even had a rap-singing style. She moved with a certain confidence but was natural at the same time. To top it all of Cherry wrote her own music, and this sent me in a direction as an artist that I had not contemplated before. Buffalo stance was one of the first tape cassettes I had for my brand new walkman, and I started babysitting so I could get the album too. It was amazing.
Years later as I was being signed to my first Music Manager in Bristol who had close ties to the band Massive Attack, and I was discussing Artists that had inspired me. Of course, I mentioned my love for Neneh Cherry. Quite often I had found that I had very different cultural and musical reference points to people I worked with because of my unique upbringing. So It was a wonderful surprise to find out that Neneh’s impact was global and also that she had been intimately involved in the Bristol urban culture scene. Two members of Massive Attack contributed to her Raw Like Sushi Album and she was an arranger on Massive Attack's Blue Lines album, which is in my top five best albums ever written.
She is the Afro-Punk inside me that allows me to boldly go, where ever I might adventure musically.