Times Are Weird, But We're Gonna Make It: How 'Positive Anger' Inspires Neneh Cherry

The Swedish pop icon Neneh Cherry heralded the hip hop soul movement with 1989's seminal debut Raw Like Sushi – a manifesto on street feminism. Some 30 years later, she's considering the nuances of global political disarray with Broken Politics. And Cherry's message is one of self-empowerment through expression.

"I'm not always so completely sure about what it is I'm exactly trying to say," she admits from her London base. "I'm just trying to say something, you know? Sometimes I find it quite difficult to actually specifically be like, 'Oh, this is this and this is that,' because it's a journey."

Today this inherently intersectional thinker is recognised as a trailblazer, even as she transcends most music scenes. Cherry's back story is extraordinary. She was born in Stockholm to the visual artist Monika "Moki" Karlsson and Sierra Leonean drummer Ahmadu Jah. Her mother wed the American jazz trumpeter Don Cherry, the family leading a bohemian, international lifestyle. Cherry's beloved stepfather introduced her to the punk band The Slits on tour. An independent teen, she settled in the UK, eventually fronting Rip Rig + Panic. On meeting her life partner, and key collaborator, Cameron McVey, she worked on Massive Attack's Blue Lines. 

Signed to Virgin, Cherry busted out with her B-girl bop Buffalo Stance, preceding Raw Like Sushi. The rapper/singer was nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy. She ventured into trip hop, and indie, on Homebrew, while engaging The Notorious BIG for a remix of the track Buddy X. But, after 1996's Man (and its hit 7 Seconds with Youssou N'Dour), Cherry apparently retreated into domesticity. In fact, she cut occasional collabs and pursued side-gigs. In 2012, Cherry aired a covers set, The Cherry Thing, with the Scandinavian outfit The Thing – calling it "a kind of free jazz project". This invigorated her. Cherry connected with Kieran Hebden, feted as the IDM producer Four Tet, for the "liberating" Blank Project – a tech-jazz album thematising personal loss. Cherry established a momentum. Hebden was keen to reunite. And so they headed to New York to record Broken Politics.

"Times are really weird and questionable and a lot of things are happening that I'm in huge disagreement about, but also having a sense of that we're gonna make it somehow."

If Blank Project was about interiority, then Broken Politics initiates a discussion. The title, Cherry notes, serves as "a headline". Topically, she ruminates on the plight of refugees in Kong, co-produced by Massive Attack's 3D. But Cherry isn't doctrinal. "I was reflective and very affected from just being a human in the world right now and having feelings of confusion and sadness and anger and disillusionment and worry, but also love and hope. So all these things were sort of [the] fall-out from a political climate. The natural thing for me is to, not just go into myself in a kind of isolated way, but to go internally to try and process some of those things. The songs are asking a lot of questions – because I think also consciously I wanted to reach out. I felt that Blank Project was very much a record that was kind of an outpour and it had an urgency and it was slightly anxious, in a way, while with this record it was more like, 'Ok, how do we go on?' I mean, always for me, that place of making music and writing is where I'm trying to figure things out. It's where I have those conversations with myself and I guess, at the same time, [I was] maybe making a record that's less self-examining – not examining myself, but the environment more."

For Cherry, fulfilling Broken Politics was illuminating. The vocalist didn't necessarily come to any major conclusions, but she empathised more deeply. "Maybe the conclusion is also about resisting; [knowing] that times are really weird and questionable and a lot of things are happening that I'm in huge disagreement about, but also having a sense of that we're gonna make it somehow. That feeling of cultivating even positive anger; some sort of hope."

Though Cherry visited Australia for promo in the '90s, she first toured in 2015. This summer, she'll return with a new six-piece band. Rather than performing a 'best of' show, she'll be focussing on Broken Politics ("almost only – I mean, not completely, but nearly").

Cherry's children have followed her into music - indeed, her youngest daughter is the rising R&B star Mabel - even though contemporary artists often struggle to sustain themselves financially. "Selling records, and making money out of selling records, unless you're Beyonce or someone, is pretty hard," Cherry sighs. However, musicians can now circumvent corporate models. "I love the fact that anybody can put out music." Still, Cherry frets about emotional wellbeing in the digital age. "Obviously, there's an incredible pressure – I watch Mabel with the social media and it feels like a 24/7 dialogue. Sometimes I feel concerned that it's just constant... You wake up and the first thing you look at is your phone."