Legendary pop icon Neneh Cherry makes an historic trip to Australia for a national tour that includes her first-ever live performance in Brisbane.
Neneh Cherry was born Neneh Karlsson in 1964 in Stockholm, the daughter of Swedish painter Monika Karlsson and Sierra Leone-born musician Ahmadu Jah.
Taking on the surname of her step-father, American jazz musician Don Cherry, Neneh has forged a career that spans three decades, beginning in 1989 with her debut studio album 'Raw Like Sushi'.
The album featured the worldwide hit single 'Buffalo Stance', which allowed Neneh a crossover into the US market, an experience that was far from positive for Neneh who found the industry overly obsessed with genre and bloated by misconduct.
In a 2018 interview with The Guardian, Neneh recounted to Sam Wolfson her experiences with shopping 'Buffalo Stance' around to radio stations in the US. “It was just common knowledge that you go to the radio stations and just pay the heads with coke and hookers to get them to play a record.
“I did a certain amount of… not that, but ringing around to radio guys and talking to them about their new car, new babies or, you know, ass-licking on that level,” Neneh says.
“I was out one night in New York with this pretty well-known guy and we were meeting the heads of some radio station and he was like: ‘Well if you just kinda give them what they want they’d probably give the record the thumbs up,’ insinuating that maybe if I went into a cupboard with them or something… And I was like: ‘I’m gonna go now, this is too much.’”
Perhaps adding insult to injury, Neneh lost out on the 1990 Grammy Award for Best New Artist to duo Milli Vanilli, which was unceremoniously revoked when it was later discovered neither Rob Pilatus or Fab Morvan had performed on the recording. A superior artist, songwriter and performer in so many regards, Neneh went on to win, and be nominated for, a wide array of awards and accolades.
Neneh released her second album 'Homebrew' in 1992 and though it was not as commercially successful as 'Raw Like Sushi', its singles 'Buddy X' and 'Trout' enjoyed an extended stay in the northern region of various Billboard charts.
Her third album 'Man' came in 1996 and featured her anthemic hit 'Woman', Neneh's interpretation of James Brown's 1966 song 'It's A Man's Man's Man's World', along with hit single '7 Seconds' (released two years earlier) with Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour; the song also earned Neneh her second Grammy Award nomination in 1994 and picked up Best Song at that year's MTV Europe Music Awards.
Neneh's next collection of solo material would not surface for another 18 years until 2014 with 'Blank Project', an album heavily influenced by the death of Neneh's mother.
In 2018 Neneh gifted us her most recent work, an album titled 'Broken Politics' that she considers quieter and more reflective than her previous records. Produced with British electronic legend Four Tet and showing yet another artistic transformation, Neneh Cherry holds a mirror up to the world on ‘Broken Politics’, showing the beauty and ugliness of modern society touching on issues like gun control, feminism and race.
Neneh Cherry Australia Tour 2018
15-16 Jan - Carriageworks (Sydney)Fri 18 Jan - The Gov (Adelaide)
Sat 19 Jan - Mona Foma (Launceston)
Tu 22 Jan - Melbourne Recital Hall
Wed 23 Jan - The Tivoli Theatre (Brisbane)
