Neneh Mariann Karlsson (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈnɛ̂nːɛ marɪˈanː ˈkɑ̌ːɭsɔn]; 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.
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.
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.
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).
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 Billboard's 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 Billboard's 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.