Interview: Neneh Cherry on a New Brand of Feminism in Pop Culture
January 7, 2015 by admin
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Photo by Kim HiorthoyNeneh Cherry plays New York on January 9.Neneh Cherry has had four top-ten hits, collaborated with everyone from Peter Gabriel to Gorillaz, and performed on Top of the Pops while seven months pregnant. But on January 9 she’s finally going to do something she’s never done before: play a solo show in New York City.
The multicultural, Swedish-born singer-songwriter explains she actually did perform in this dirty town back in the late 1970s. As a teen, she sang backing vocals for a ska band called The Nails at a club called Tramps (she thinks).
“Probably the first gig I ever did,” she tells the Voice by phone from her home in London. “[And] the first band I was ever in. Kind of.”
Cherry says she never meant to let thirty-five years go by between engagements, but Friday’s headlining show at Highline Ballroom should prove an auspicious return to the city she’s lived in as both a child and a “so-called grown-up” and names as a major influence on her eclectic, genre-bending music. “At times I’ve struggled with the feeling of being a little bit on the outside,” she says, “and I think in New York I’ve had a very powerful sense, sometimes, of feeling like I belong…many of my components were made up of things I’ve seen and life I’ve led in New York.”
Raised in Sweden and New York City in an intensely creative environment — her mother, Monica “Moki” Cherry, was a Swedish textile designer; stepfather Don Cherry was a celebrated African American jazz musician — Neneh Cherry counts music among her native languages. Members of both the Modern Lovers and Talking Heads even lived in her Long Island City apartment complex. At sixteen she left her family’s loft for London, where she began finding her voice in the city’s emerging post-punk, reggae, and hip-hop scenes. She had formative stints in the Slits and Rip Rig Panic and DJ’d on pirate radio station the Dread Broadcasting Corporation.
Cherry was just twenty-four in 1988 when she scored an international and Billboard number three hit with her smash “Buffalo Stance,” a happy accident for an artist who had little commercial ambition. “With Raw Like Sushi [Cherry's 1989 debut album that contained "Buffalo Stance"] we were really just committed to doing what we felt was right and not watering it down,” she recalls, referring to herself and collaborators including her co-producer and now husband, Cameron McVey. “Not bending over to fit in to what someone in a record company thought it should look like.” That young people are still bumping the song nearly twenty-seven years later is “a surprise,” she says, albeit “a big, big, lovely bonus.”
Decades later, it’s not hard to see how prescient Cherry’s vision was; from her freeform genre-blending and fly Nineties style to her progressive gender politics, it seems she prefigured every non-depressing aspect of today’s zeitgeist. While some figures from the punk era fear change, she applauds the role the internet has played in making “segregated areas in music start to disappear” and name-checks FKA Twigs and St. Vincent as artists continuing to carry the banner of “quirky, interesting” sounds. Today, she refuses to stand still — in both her listening habits and her own musical development.
Cherry says she’s inspired by how artists today have ushered a new brand of feminism into pop culture. “It’s definitely on people’s tongues and it’s definitely been an active conversation and feeling and emotion,” she says. A recent demonstration for Sweden’s rising Feminist Initiative party, which she attended with her eighteen-year-old daughter, left her in tears. And yet she cringes to see us grappling with some of the same issues that she did back in the Eighties. She recalls recently watching a contemporary music video that featured a kidnapped girlfriend in white lingerie waiting to be rescued and another with numerous scantily clad women who were “literally in cages.” “How can we, us — women in the year 2014 — even be letting that happen?” she wonders. “We need to take charge of our shit!”
Cherry, an outspoken progressive, has also been tracking with dread the “right-wing storm blowing over Europe.” She laments the shrinking of material support for artists where right-wing movements are making gains, but attempts to find a silver lining in everything. “Being alive, in a way, is always political, I feel,” she says. “Even if you’re not choosing to make political choices, you are affected. And I think the things that happen around you — if you’re a creative person, the shit that goes on around will maybe stimulate you to voice certain things, or the anger or the hurt of something will be good fodder for the things you make.”
This is an interesting thought to keep in mind while listening to Cherry’s most recent solo record, Blank Project, released in February 2014 as a follow-up to 2012′s free-jazz collaboration The Cherry Thing. By all accounts, Blank Project is an intensely personal album. It’s her second solo effort after an eighteen-year “gap” during which she worked on a plethora of projects — obscure jazz records, Pulp’s This Is Hardcore, even a cooking show on BBC Two. Blank Project was created in collaboration with McVey and London electronic duo RocketNumberNine and was produced by Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden. Its ten tracks of stark, minimalist arrangements foreground Cherry’s soulful voice and ruminative lyrics. The death of her mother in 2009 looms large, even when not specifically referenced, as on album opener “Across the Water.” At the same time, that and certain free-floating anxieties (like the lyric “my fear is for my daughters”) feel quite social in nature.
“I suppose the songs are a way for me to kind of figure out where I’m at, what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling in regard to myself and the bigger picture,” Cherry says. “I was trying to get into this mindset of not being too analytical, but just letting the words fall out and trying to write them as poetry…but to not get too indulgent in my story, because I think my story is important, but we all have stories.”
Cherry’s open-ended metaphors serve this purpose well; the sense of dread described alternately as “an old friend or an enemy” and “the black dog in the corner” on the brooding “Spit Three Times” could be many things to many people. Cherry says this kind of “dialogue” — with herself, her collaborators, and her listeners — is essential to the record’s journey. “I think that as much as I’m figuring stuff out through my lyrics as I go along, I’m also working out life,” she explains. “And I think that’s a thing you want to share with people. That’s kind of the message of the songs. It’s like, ‘I don’t really have the answers, I don’t know who does. Sometimes I do for a minute, but maybe we can find them for a while together.’ ”
Which brings us back to her current tour, which will feature the same musicians from the album (minus fellow Swede Robyn, who guests on languid club-thumper “Out of the Black”). “I think that’s why playing live is really important and can be really powerful,” Cherry says. “Because we can have these very definite kinds of meetings with audiences and the music where everything makes sense all of a sudden, for a while, in a room. It’s like, ‘Oh, now I know why I’m doing this.’ ”
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Neneh Cherry plays Highline Ballroom Friday, January 9, at 7 p.m. (doors 5 p.m.) with openers Sinkane and Kaki King.
Location Info
Highline Ballroom
431 W. 16th St., New York, NY
Category: Music
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Real Housewives Star Yolanda Foster’s Guide to Raising the Next Big Things in …
January 7, 2015 by admin
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You just can’t help but be in awe of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Yolanda Foster. She’s got an incredibly romantic marriage to music producing superstar David Foster. She’s into the Master Cleanse, which she mixes with lemon juice from the lemons she grows in her own backyard (which, to be fair, is actually more like a private oasis). She has a see-through fridge that’s so awesome it has its own Twitter account. She still has a close relationship with her ex-husband (and Bravo regular), Mohammed Hadid, and his fiancee, Shiva Safai. And she’s the proud mom of Gigi and Bella Hadid—both of whom are currently taking the modeling world by storm and have mastered the art of staying true to themselves and totally down to earth. That’s pretty unusual when you’re so young and thrust into the limelight, but Yolanda would never let them behave any other way. Read on as Yolanda opens up how she raised her girls to be the “next big thing” while making sure they would never lose themselves in the process.
Glamour: You’re raising such levelheaded kids in such a cutthroat world. What is your secret?
Yolanda Foster: Well, I think that when you choose to have children you must invest the time. I think that children, their character, and who they become later on is really shaped the first eight, nine years of their life. So for me, I stopped working and really was a full-time mother 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and I put in my time. And now at a later point of life, I can sit back and trust that I’ve given them the foundation they need to be independent young women. I’m just on the sidelines watching and cheering them on. And if things break down, I’m here to catch them. But overall they’re living their life and their dreams.
Glamour: When did Gigi and Bella decide they wanted to follow in your footsteps and get into modeling?
YF: As a little kid everybody wanted to shoot Gigi, and it just never felt right to me. I let her model a little bit until she was eight or nine years old, and then I completely pulled her away until she was 17. I always felt that I didn’t want the world to judge her on the way she looks. I always had a very strong sense that I wanted both my girls to develop as real people and who they are individually as women, rather than being judged on their [looks]. I think that’s really damaging for any child. I always felt very strongly about that, and I was very strict. They never owned a piece of designer clothing. Gigi got her first Chanel bag when she turned 18, and so did Bella. They were raised doing lots of sports. They were both riding horses every day—their weekends were spent at the horse shows. They got up at 4 or 5 in the morning, and it was a very disciplined life. It kept them away from trouble. I think sports are important. Especially being born into this kind of lifestyle, I think it’s very important to keep them grounded and humble. As everybody knows, money comes and goes, and you should be OK and happy without all of that.
Glamour: Did their experience competing in sports help them adjust to the limelight and the competitive nature of modeling?
YF: I think that if you don’t allow your children to work at an early age and there’s no camera at them, then they’re just freely growing up. Individually, Bella and Gigi are both very different women. I think they grew up with a decent sense of themselves and who they really are, rather than growing up with a sense of what other people in the outside world think of them. Their starting point was probably very different than most children. I remember taking Gigi to New York City, and before we went to an agency, she looked at me and said, “But what if none of the agencies want me?” I said, “Well, that’s great. You’re going to school any way to study criminal psychology at the New School, so it doesn’t really matter. If you can have a side career in modeling while you’re studying that would be great. But if not, that’s OK too.” She doesn’t even know how beautiful she is or knew how she would do in high heels or with makeup. They just went into it having a good sense of self. And, yes, of course, now Gigi often says to me, “Mommy, I never understood why you didn’t want me to work before I was 17, but now there are moments when I’m at castings with the most beautiful women in the world, and I’m like ‘Oh, my God.’ I would have been so intimidated had I been younger!”
Glamour: What do you tell them when they don’t book a job?
YF: Well, for instance, Gigi worked so hard to get the Victoria’s Secret fashion show, and she didn’t get it. But you know what? That’s just life. She was sad. She was boxing at Gotham gym every day and in great shape, and it seemed like a perfect fit. But you know what? It ended up not to be. And rather than go, “Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said, “Hey, Gigi, that’s life, baby. We’re not always going to get what we want, and this is not a rejection of you, Gigi, as a human being. This is just redirection for you into something that’s going to be much bigger.” She looked at me like, “What do you mean?” And I go,”If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen at another time. It wasn’t meant to happen today.” As a mom, in moments like that I’m there to catch them, but overall, they’re marching to their own beat.
Ed note: Looks like Gigi’s Victoria’s Secret dreams are coming true after all!
Glamour: How are Bella and Gigi different in how they go about their modeling careers?
YF: You know, Bella never really aspired to be a model. She always wanted to be a professional rider and go to the Olympics and be an Olympian equestrian. She got sick a few years ago, and I had to pull her off the horses because I was just worried that she was going to get in a bad accident and it would be deadly. So she fell into the modeling in a different way than Gigi. Gigi, we always knew that was what she was most likely going to do. Even though she always wanted to study criminal psychology, I always knew that once she was in New York that she would have a side job in modeling. Raising children is not like a cookie cutter. Not each child is the same. All three of my children are completely different human beings. As a good mom, you learn to appreciate each individual and really guide them to grow the best they can be within their own spirit. Bella is an old soul. Bella was born with her eyes open, and she came here to teach me a thing or two. Gigi is like a carbon copy of me.
Glamour: Were your kids surprised that you wanted to do the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills?
YF: I’ve worked my whole life, since I was 12 years old. My father died when I was seven, and I had a very early sense of responsibility, providing for my family in Holland. We were quite poor. So I only really stopped working and stayed home when I started my family because I always knew that those 10 years were really, really important for me to be home, hands on, driving them to school. I ended up being a single mom as well, and I really committed to being a single mom and being at home with my kids. But I always talked about how important it is for a woman to be independent and to work and keep your own job and all that. Before I got on the Housewives, I had already gone back to work doing a TV show in Holland, so the Housewife thing kind of naturally flowed. We really didn’t quite understand the impact it would have on, not only my life but also the lives of my children. So, really the answer to your question is, well, no, they weren’t surprised because they knew it was time for me to get back to work because they soon were going to go off to college. It was kind of a family decision that we made together, but not really understanding how life changing it was going to be.
Glamour: Do the things you do or say on the show ever embarrass them? Especially, say, when you put on lingerie for their stepdad, David Foster?
YF: I raised them half-naked. Trust me, being a single mom of three kids under the age of four…I’d be naked in the shower, and I’d wash their hair and bodies one by one like it was a factory. They were raised very open with their sexuality and their body. I’m Dutch. We’re very liberal. So, we really don’t discuss it much at home. I know last year Gigi was crying because she was upset with the way people were talking on social media. She was going, “You’re my mommy. They don’t even know you, and they’re judging on what they see, on how they edit the show!” It was really upsetting to her because they’re very righteous. But they’ve never criticized me on my behavior because what you see is really what you get. And I am no different on the show than I am at home, so my philosophies, the way I talk, my temperament, it is what it is!
Glamour: You’re very into your health, especially as you overcome Lyme disease. What have you taught your girls about being healthy and not being obsessed with their weight and body image?
YF: I’ve always been an absolute health fanatic. Age to me is just a number. I’ve always been like, you eat right and you exercise—that’s the way you go through life. I’ve raised my children like that. We can have candy once in a while, but on an everyday basis our lifestyle is about being healthy. Fruits and vegetables and organic—and I always grew my own fruit and vegetables in my garden. I never taught my children or myself any diet; I just always preached a certain lifestyle that they grew up with and which today is really part of their life. They’re not ultra-skinny models. No, they’re girls that choose to eat healthy, that are in the gym, that are committed to do the work to stay in shape. That’s what makes healthy children and happy children on top of it. It’s not like we don’t have any sugar in the house or we’re not allowed ice cream. I just think that the greatest gift to your children is teaching them to live a healthy lifestyle. Teach them what it’s like to feel good after a yoga class or going for a run or skiing or a horseback ride. It’s not just about the physical of how you look; it’s how you feel inside and how their brain works different when you teach them yoga at an early age and take them for walks and teach them about the outdoor life. I just think that those things are really important—especially in today’s world with all the electronics and how easy it is to throw a child in front of the TV or with an iPad. I’m all about being outdoors and eating healthy and giving them that foundation that really is the only thing that is going to give them happiness for the rest of their life.
Glamour: Do you worry about other girls in the modeling world reversing that philosophy for them?
YF: It makes me sad that young women think they have to be bone skinny in order to get a job in the industry. It shouldn’t be that way. Women come in every form and shape, and we fluctuate. We want people to judge us on who we are as human beings. Yes, there’s a job for everybody and beautiful girls are going to be in the modeling industry and really extraordinary, strong ones are going to be running Google. There’s a job for all kinds of women, and I feel like that’s important. For moms, maybe it’s important that you’re in good shape, but the most important thing is that you’re healthy. Without your health, you don’t have anything. I’m living proof for that. You can have money, you can have a beautiful house, you can have a great car, you can be married to the best guy or girl, but if you’re not healthy, if you can’t get out of bed in the morning, it all doesn’t mean anything. That’s always what I try to teach my girls—since a very early age—is to really love who they are on the inside, before anything.
Glamour: It sounds like ultimately both Bella and Gigi have found their passions!
YF: Yes! Honestly, if Bella called tomorrow and said, “I want to be a dentist” that’s great! Whatever! Bella had a job making smoothies at the health food store for a long time and was making $8 an hour. It was a great—she was happy doing it. She learned a lot about health, so it doesn’t really matter what you do, as long as you’re happy doing it. As parents, it’s not up to us. We can’t tell our children what their journey is or how they should live their life or what job they need to choose. You give them the right tools to be the best human being they can be and they have to find their own path.
Be sure to tune in to the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills every Tuesday night at 9 P.M. ET on Bravo to see more of Yolanda!