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Neneh Cherry.
 Neneh
Cherry is madly writing songs for her fourth album in the country
house in Sweden where she and stepbrother Eagle Eye Cherry grew
up. She's also a bit wary about returning to live performances
after a six year break and decided the best thing to do was
ease into it through her DJ sets.
"I''ve been playing with MCs at some shows and remembering that side of myself," she explains. "It's getting a nice response, and I'm getting quite inspired."
Cherry recently DJed for huge crowds at Glastonbury Festival, a rave in Moscow and, according to rumours, may play the opening of the Athens Olympics.
"I started DJing many moons ago at the Wag club in London," she remembers. "At the time I had a small baby and no money. I was right into dance music, of course, and I was motivated by the fact there were no female DJs then."
Last year she DJed at the Pacha club in Ibiza. She digs its villa style and sexy candlelight, far from the plastic side of clubland. "When you walk in, you definitely feel it's the real deal," she says. "I don't like the big places in Ibiza like Amnesia. The Pacha is the only place in Ibiza where you can hear music outside of techno or house, and the only place which runs in winter."
Renaissance have just released the 3-CD set 'Pacha Ibiza.' One disc represents the club's Latin, Afro and disco bent through tracks selected by Kiko Navarro, while recent visitor Wally Lopez sprinkles some twisted tribal house on Disc 2. For her disc, Cherry teamed with Pacha's resident DJ Andy B for a splendid array of hip hop and r'n'b, ranging from Biz Markie, Jazzy Jeff, Roots Manuva and A Tribe Called Quest to the obscure Medaphoar, Pachecos, Jota Mayuscula and a sublime duet by the late soulstress Minnie Ripperton and Rotary Connection.
"Minnie was one of my inspirations when I was nine years old, because she and Chaka Khan seemed to be the only women who wrote and produced their own music," Cherry recalls. "That track has always been one of my favourites. There was a certain eerie quality to it that I dug."
Cherry knows her music. After all, she has just finished a radio documentary on the great blues jazz singer Billie Holiday, and held a tribute night for her with Fontella Bass, Amy Whitehouse and Chrissie Hynde, among others. When she called Norah Jones "uninspired" in a newspaper, she knew what she saying. "I'm sure she deserves her success but really, where's the excitement?"
Neneh is the daughter of West African percussionist Amadu Jah and Swedish artist Moki Cherry. She grew up with her stepfather Don Cherry, the great jazz trumpeter and global music pioneer, and remembers meeting Miles Davis when she was four. At 17, while working as a cleaner, she was in Rip Rig & Panic, a band which showcased a freeflowing mix of funk, soul and jazz. Neneh shared vocals with Andrea Oliver, with whom she still occasionally DJs. At 18, Neneh had her first daughter Naima with the band's drummer Bruce Smith (Neneh recently became a grandmother after 21-year old Naima recently had a son: Louise Clyde Flynn Love).
Her 1989 debut 'Raw Like Sushi' was an irresistible take on hip-hop and blues and sold two million with singles like Buffalo Stance, Manchild and Kisses On The Wind. She married producer Cameron "Boogie Bear" McVey. Her follow up, 'Home Brew,' was a more soulful effort with guests like Michael Stipe, Gang Starr's Guru and an then-unknown Geoff Barrows (later to lead Portishead). 'Man' was a rushed discourse of life and death as Don Cherry's life came to an end in the couple's rented home in Spain. Then she took a break, determined to be home for her daughters Tyson and Mabel.
She's kept her hand in with music since, mind: there was Seven Seconds, a 1994 duet with Youssou N'Dour, she collaborated on Groove Armada's Love Box in 2002, did a track on Eagle Eye's album and a half hour show on Radio 2 called 'Neneh Cherry's World Of Music' where she could play anything she wanted. "I could have taken the fast route to money but I kept my sanity," she says of her career to date.
Christie Eliezer
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'Pacha Ibiza' is out now through Renaissance/Stomp.
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