Neneh Cherry
| Neneh Cherry | |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Neneh Mariann Karlsson |
| Born |
10 March 1964 , Sweden |
| Genres | |
| Occupation(s) | |
| Years active | 1981–present |
| Labels | |
| Website | nenehcherry |
Neneh Mariann Karlsson (born 10 March 1964), better known as Neneh Cherry, is a Swedish singer-songwriter, rapper, and occasional DJ and broadcaster.
Cherry was born as Neneh Karlsson in , the daughter of Monica "Moki" Karlsson, a Swedish painter and textile artist, and the musician Ahmadu Jah. Jah was born in Sierra Leone, the son of a chief. He went to Stockholm to study engineering at university.
Cherry's mother married the influential American jazz musician Don Cherry, who helped raise Cherry since birth. Cherry took her stepfather's surname.
Cherry has a half-sister, singer Titiyo, and half-brother, record producer Cherno Jah, from her father Ahmadu Jah's marriage to Maylen Jah (née Bergström). Cherry also has a half-brother, musician Eagle-Eye Cherry, a stepsister, violinist Jan Cherry, and a stepbrother, jazz musician David Ornette Cherry from stepfather Don Cherry's side.
Cherry's parents, Moki and Don Cherry, bought and converted an old schoolhouse in the countryside outside the small town of Hässleholm in Sweden in 1970. In the early 1970s, the family moved to the United States, when Don Cherry taught at Dartmouth College. Cherry dropped out of school at 14 and moved to London.
Cherry said she found her voice singing along with Poly Styrene from X-Ray Spex. She grew up in a musical family; she remembers singing with her father at the piano.
Cherry moved to the United Kingdom when she was 14, at the end of the Punk era, and she remembers finding "her people" there. Cherry had met Tessa Pollitt, Viv Albertine and Ari Up from The Slits earlier as her stepfather, Don Cherry, was touring with them and brought the 15-year-old Neneh along. She and Ari lived in a squat in Battersea. She felt at home, after ending up there because The Slits invited her stepfather, Don Cherry, to go on tour with them with Prince Hammer and Creation Rebel.
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