By Andrew Drever
Neneh Cherry’s latest project – female artists covering key songs from her back catalogue – was conceived to celebrate her past. Instead, it’s become about looking forward.
This shouldn’t be a surprise. Across a 35-plus-year career as pioneering music artist and style icon, Cherry has steadfastly refused to bask in past successes or repeat herself artistically.
Singing with friends: Neneh Cherry.Credit:Juergen Teller
Neneh Cherry - The Versions gathers female peers, friends and family – Robyn, Sia, Sudan Archives, Greentea Peng, Jamila Woods, Anohni, Honey Dijon and her daughter, Tyson – reimagining touchstone tracks such as Buffalo Stance, Manchild, Buddy X and Woman.
“I just thought the obvious thing to do was to ask the people whose music you love,” says Cherry, on a video call from London.
Initially, the plan was to commission new remixes for the 2019 reissue of her debut 1989 album, Raw Like Sushi, but Cherry says she found that idea “boring”. The project shifted to female artists recording her songs and she didn’t want to just assemble a list of big names.
Album art for Neneh Cherry’s The Versions.
“This is not a business to me, like ‘let’s see if we can get Nicki Minaj to do it’, ha ha. That’s not going to work. I think it’s about leading the music to a place that makes sense with the original threads. Through their music, I already felt very connected to the women that are part of this record.”
In conversation, the 58-year-old Cherry is warm and candid. She says the past two years of the pandemic brought opportunity to spend time with her family: husband and creative partner Cameron McVey and daughters Naima, 39, Tyson, 33, and Mabel, 26 – but it wasn’t a creative time.
In recent years, she has flitted between Stockholm (her birthplace) and London. The latter has been a full-time base since last September, but Cherry has always led a nomadic lifestyle.
With her father, a percussionist from Sierra Leone, Swedish artist mother and jazz musician stepfather, Don Cherry, she grew up in Sweden and then New York before fleeing alone to London when she was 15. Once there, she immersed herself in the city’s early-’80s post-punk scene, undertaking stints in bands such as The Slits and Rip Rig + Panic before the worldwide hit single Buffalo Stance fuelled the success of Raw Like Sushi.
Appearing primed for pop stardom, instead Cherry opted to experiment across two subsequent ’90s albums and was determined to merge her music, motherhood and family.
“I always felt that having a home base, a family and a purpose in life was going to be the foundation of everything,” she explains. “It’s far more interesting if you’re able to be a fuller human being rather than just this kind of empty shell that looks great!”
Her music and motherhood juggle finally stopped in 1996 following the release of third album, Woman, which coincided with the birth of third daughter. Aside from some standout feature appearances (with Gorillaz, Peter Gabriel, Groove Armada and more), she focused on her family. Her next solo album proper wouldn’t arrive until 2014’s Four Tet-produced The Blank Project; Broken Politics followed in 2018.
The Versions continues Cherry’s running theme of family – literally and figuratively. Besides the appearance of Tyson, Cherry has known Swedish artist Robyn for three decades, while Sia lived with Cherry and McVey during dark times in her life, describing McVey as a mentor and “bonus dad”.
Reluctantly forced to choose favourites from the album, Cherry finally settles on Tyson’s jazzy take on Sassy (“yeah, OK, she’s my daughter!”), Robyn’s slowed-down Buffalo Stance , Anohni’s hymnal Woman and Seinabo Sey’s poetic Kisses on the Wind.
“Sometimes, I’ll be in a cab,” she says wistfully, “and one of my old tracks will just randomly come on, and it will take me back there, which is great. But this is taking me into the future, and I love that.”
Neneh Cherry – The Versions is out now.
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