Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey y'all, today we are welcoming the Swedish born
Speaker 1: singer Nana Cherry to the show. Nana's four decade long
Speaker 1: career has ricocheted between a number of genres, including hip hop, jazz,
Speaker 1: trip pop, and punk. Her first single in eighty eight,
Speaker 1: Buffalo Stance, cemented her standing as a no nonsense black
Speaker 1: feminist voice in contemporary urban music. Cherry was living in
Speaker 1: London when her debut album Raw Like Sushi was released.
Speaker 1: At the time, she was collaborating with genre defining nineties
Speaker 1: electro dance acts like sold A Soul and Massive Attack.
Speaker 1: This year, Non released her sixth album, The Versions. It's
Speaker 1: a collection of cover songs of some of Cherry's biggest
Speaker 1: hits and is performed exclusively by female artists, including Robin
Speaker 1: Sia and Nana's daughter Tyson. On today's episode, Bruce Hellam
Speaker 1: talks to Nana Cherry about her bohemian upbringing in Sweden,
Speaker 1: New York and London. Was stepdad Don Cherry, the famous
Speaker 1: jazz trumpetist. Nana also recalls how she first met the
Speaker 1: legendary all girl punk group The Slits and why despite
Speaker 1: scoring her first big hit with a cheeky rat verse.
Speaker 1: She never considered herself a real MC. This is broken
Speaker 1: record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richmond.
Speaker 1: Here's Bruce Hudlam with Nana Cherry. So we're here to
Speaker 1: talk about the new album, which is The Versions, Yes,
Speaker 1: which is your first in four or five years, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's a kind of new style of album because
Speaker 1: I'm not really on it so m which has been
Speaker 1: kind of an incredible experience. Is your voice snuck in
Speaker 1: here or there? I thought I heard it. I don't
Speaker 1: know whether it's someone has sampled it or but you know,
Speaker 1: it's really an idea that was hatched after the reissue
Speaker 1: of Rolling Sus she came out. Honey Dijon, my beloved
Speaker 1: Honey Dijon made a remix of Buddy X, which kind
Speaker 1: of came out at the same time, and that kind
Speaker 1: of then hatched an idea to well, to ask other
Speaker 1: people to cover the songs. Initially it was going to
Speaker 1: be just the songs on Roll Like Sushi. We were like, well,
Speaker 1: let's reach out to like, for instance, Robin, who's a
Speaker 1: great friend and my sister and someone I really consider
Speaker 1: to be a great inspiration. But like I also know
Speaker 1: that she kind of grew up with role like sushi,
Speaker 1: so in a way, it was a kind of no brainer.
Speaker 1: So she was maybe one of the first people that
Speaker 1: we asked, and then saying Abousset, who is also a
Speaker 1: Swedish artist with Gambian background, She's amazing, and then it
Speaker 1: just again it was like a funny little domino effect,
Speaker 1: and it was just kind of a joy because I
Speaker 1: was like just reaching out like the artists that I
Speaker 1: was listening to that seemed to be out there being
Speaker 1: very much themselves and kind of breaking new molds, you know,
Speaker 1: so females. I mean, it's a female led project. You know,
Speaker 1: just looking over your career, you don't seem like someone
Speaker 1: who likes revisiting things. Every album is something new. Broken
Speaker 1: Politics is different than the album before. The album before
Speaker 1: that was the Jazz record. What's it like to go
Speaker 1: back and revisit things. I think there is something quite
Speaker 1: important about revisiting things. And You're right, I have always
Speaker 1: been slightly allergic to relying on the past. I've always
Speaker 1: felt like I want to move forward because I feel
Speaker 1: so unfinished and I feel like I'm always battling with
Speaker 1: my own insecurity and demons, as in, like the things
Speaker 1: around me that question whether not necessarily whether I'm doing
Speaker 1: things good enough, but whether I'm reaching the things that
Speaker 1: I feel that I need, that I want to tap
Speaker 1: into or express or to be open enough for those
Speaker 1: things to flow out. Yeah, and also like being a
Speaker 1: bit scared of getting caught in some sort of like
Speaker 1: a karaoke hell hole, you know, where you're just relying
Speaker 1: on and rehatching things that have already been done because
Speaker 1: that's what people maybe recognize or know the best. Or
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm fifty eight and maybe in that movement
Speaker 1: of looking forward, always kind of pushed through and pushed ahead.
Speaker 1: Hopefully maybe if I'm lucky, I'm just like a little
Speaker 1: bit over halfway through my life. I think it's important
Speaker 1: to kind of take stop so revisiting these songs because
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of what you were asking has
Speaker 1: become a very beautiful thing, especially as it's through the
Speaker 1: eyes of other people. And and a lot of the
Speaker 1: artists are kind of another generation to me, a younger generation.
Speaker 1: I mean, Okay, we try not to over obsess, but
Speaker 1: you know, you hope that when you have a good song,
Speaker 1: that that song has its own legs that other people
Speaker 1: can use to walk or run with, you know. And
Speaker 1: so it's been like a very cathartic but beautiful journey,
Speaker 1: and I feel very connected to all of the different
Speaker 1: artists that have Sudan archives. Kelsey Loon, Green, Tea Pang,
Speaker 1: My daughter Tyson did a song, your daughter who was
Speaker 1: a famous history with Buffalo Stance. Yeah, she was in utero,
Speaker 1: she was. She was in utero throughout most of the
Speaker 1: the journey of making the album, and you know, Top
Speaker 1: of the Pops and the kind of early days you
Speaker 1: get criticized from being pregnant on the people wrote about
Speaker 1: it like you were it was child abuse, or you'd
Speaker 1: thrown yourself down the stairs in a Victorian novel or something, yeah,
Speaker 1: or like you know, I was going to hurt the
Speaker 1: child dancing around and you know that I should be
Speaker 1: draped in a big black cape or something. And definitely
Speaker 1: not on Top of the Pops, which was like the
Speaker 1: biggest thing that happened on a once a week on television,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, I wasn't trying to be some
Speaker 1: kind of a game changer, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like a lot of people are like, oh wow, that
Speaker 1: was so like amazing. I was just pregnant and and
Speaker 1: I didn't want to hide it and also like wanting
Speaker 1: to do things in a different way. And I think
Speaker 1: before I put out Buffalo Stance and before I started
Speaker 1: working on role like Sushi, I had always been in
Speaker 1: bands and I'd always in and like that family, you know,
Speaker 1: And it was so it was the first time that
Speaker 1: I kind of stepped out by myself and I felt
Speaker 1: very well in a kind of fighting spirit of like, yes,
Speaker 1: I am here, I am a young woman, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to step over the loop holes. He was like,
Speaker 1: we're going to kick the door down instead of strutting
Speaker 1: out uncomfortably in a pair of uncomfortable heels. I want
Speaker 1: to get back to that album and of course the
Speaker 1: new album. But we should talk a bit about your background.
Speaker 1: You grew up in this bohemian family. Your stepfather was
Speaker 1: famous jazz trumpet player Don Cherry, who played with Ornette
Speaker 1: Coleman and John Coltrane. And tell us about your mother
Speaker 1: as well. My mother's name was Moki Cherry, and she
Speaker 1: was an incredible woman. She was an artist. She was
Speaker 1: a very creative person. I think when Don came the
Speaker 1: first time he came to Sweden. He was playing with
Speaker 1: Archie Shepp in the concert who setting stock on the
Speaker 1: concert house, and it was the famous night at the
Speaker 1: concert house when the basement caught on fire, you know,
Speaker 1: and everyone or anyone that was there will refer to
Speaker 1: it as the night the stage caught on fire and
Speaker 1: no one moved, you know, because the music was hotter
Speaker 1: then the flames were going to be. There was smoke
Speaker 1: coming up through the stage, and you know, people were
Speaker 1: just sitting there and I don't know whether they just
Speaker 1: kind of put the fire out downstairs or whether they
Speaker 1: took a break, but I think they just kept playing.
Speaker 1: And I know that when Don saw my mother and
Speaker 1: he said, oh he was. She was wearing this bamboo
Speaker 1: glasses and this kind of leather skirt thing that she'd made,
Speaker 1: and she she was MOOKI was always ahead of her time,
Speaker 1: and so he definitely saw her. And then he came
Speaker 1: back a few months later, and that's kind of when
Speaker 1: they got together. My mother was someone who I think,
Speaker 1: from like a really young age, knew that she wanted to,
Speaker 1: you know, in her own way and through her own voice,
Speaker 1: be a part of making the world a more beautiful
Speaker 1: place and they collaborated on things. They collaborated, you know,
Speaker 1: for many years. I mean, their life story until they
Speaker 1: couldn't live together anymore, was was a collaboration, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think the thing that's very important to to recognize,
Speaker 1: but I think that anyone that knew Moki and knew
Speaker 1: down would say that she made it possible, like she
Speaker 1: helped him find his wings, you know. And there's a
Speaker 1: cute story where the first time they had slept together,
Speaker 1: you know, spend a night together, Don had fallen asleep
Speaker 1: and when he woke up, she had died his long
Speaker 1: underwear pink and it was like she'd probably done that
Speaker 1: in a in a pot on the stove. You know.
Speaker 1: We didn't have a washing machine in those days. So
Speaker 1: and they were just probably hanging on a line in
Speaker 1: the in the room. Well that's when you know you've overslept, Yeah,
Speaker 1: die were you just waking up just at the right time.
Speaker 1: But um, so you know they had a very creative relationship.
Speaker 1: So what was that like growing up in that household?
Speaker 1: I mean, that's quite a difficult question to answer. In
Speaker 1: a way, I feel such a great sense of kind
Speaker 1: of privilege that I grew up in the world that
Speaker 1: I grew up in, you know, like it's such a
Speaker 1: it's such a blessing. I mean, I guess I heard
Speaker 1: music before I was born, right, And I think that
Speaker 1: like the world that was within our house, it didn't
Speaker 1: look like anywhere else around in the neighborhoo, you know,
Speaker 1: which was kind of sort of stressful for me sometimes
Speaker 1: because I wanted to a certain degree, even though I
Speaker 1: was very much at home in my home, but for
Speaker 1: it to be like everybody else's homes, you know, and
Speaker 1: we had like we would sit on the floor, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. We didn't have a couch. We
Speaker 1: had a low cut table. Then eventually we did have
Speaker 1: a couch, but you know, we ate lentils and brown
Speaker 1: rice and we didn't eat mashed potatoes. And you know,
Speaker 1: I would also like to stress because I think that
Speaker 1: something that I fight with is this sort of people's
Speaker 1: opinions of like, oh, it was all very I mean,
Speaker 1: the word bohemian, I think is more respectful than oh,
Speaker 1: you guys were just a bunch of hippies, and you know,
Speaker 1: everyone just sort of laid around and smoked a lot
Speaker 1: of weed, and you know, and yeah, okay, people smoke
Speaker 1: some weed. But I think that sometimes it overrides the
Speaker 1: incredible process that people like my parents and a lot
Speaker 1: of their peers put into the work that they did,
Speaker 1: which was very serious. You know, there was an absolute
Speaker 1: commitment to the journey the work. You know, on a social, political, family, life,
Speaker 1: sonic level. Do you have the same work habits as
Speaker 1: your parents? No? You know, Don played all day every
Speaker 1: day he was with his instruments, walking down the street.
Speaker 1: He would play the flute or his Hunter's guitar from
Speaker 1: Molly the Dzunguni. I mean, it was just a part
Speaker 1: of the movement, his movement. You know, I can hand
Speaker 1: on heart say that I wish, if I had any
Speaker 1: regrets in my life, that I had worked harder, been
Speaker 1: more disciplined with my songwriting and making music all the time.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes I've finished an album and then I've
Speaker 1: kind of closed the door and kind of gone out
Speaker 1: into life and not stayed with it. And I think
Speaker 1: my mother's process, I mean, being a woman and running
Speaker 1: a house and a family that consumed I mean the
Speaker 1: same as for me, consumed a lot of her time,
Speaker 1: and for her it was also a schlep sometimes but
Speaker 1: also a part of her creative process in a way.
Speaker 1: But it also took her away from her art, and
Speaker 1: I know that she really struggled with that. But when
Speaker 1: she worked, she really worked incredibly hard. It's something I've heard,
Speaker 1: you know, from a lot of female artistside, yeah, interviewed
Speaker 1: if they're a bit older, and I'll say, oh, you
Speaker 1: took some time off. They're like, well, yeah, I had
Speaker 1: a family. Yeah. You know, Mick Jagger doesn't take time
Speaker 1: off when he is a family. No, he doesn't ask to.
Speaker 1: So what kind of kid were you then growing up?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I've always been quite independent. We
Speaker 1: lived on Ninth Street and Second Avenue when I was
Speaker 1: about eight, and we'd been before we moved into that place.
Speaker 1: We'd been staying at the Chelsea Hotel where I've just
Speaker 1: come from today, and I had a friend there who
Speaker 1: was the daughter of a painter called Our Loving I believe,
Speaker 1: and she was living in the Chelsea too. We'd moved
Speaker 1: to nine Street and when we got down to ninth
Speaker 1: Street after a couple of days, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to see Anne, and my mother went, okay,
Speaker 1: well you can walk there. So if you go all
Speaker 1: the way on Second Avenue to twenty third Street, and
Speaker 1: then you go all the way up on twenty third
Speaker 1: Street to whatever eighth and between seventh and eighth and
Speaker 1: eighth and ninth, you'll get there. And you know, I
Speaker 1: did that, and I think now like I would never
Speaker 1: have set out well on one of those walks. So
Speaker 1: I think I was quite independent and very sensitive, but
Speaker 1: also determined to be okay. And I think sometimes that
Speaker 1: determination has meant that I have also shut down certain
Speaker 1: things to kind of feel all right, which I've dealt
Speaker 1: with later in life, stress or difficult things for everything
Speaker 1: to kind of to be fine. And you know, there
Speaker 1: was a big contrast, of course between like being in
Speaker 1: the forest in Sweden where my parents bought a house
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy an old schoolhouse, and then on a
Speaker 1: regular basis coming to live in New York, which I'm
Speaker 1: so thankful for because I think I would have been
Speaker 1: a very different person if I had just spent the
Speaker 1: first sixteen years of my life in Sweden. We're gonna
Speaker 1: take a quick break, but we'll be right back with
Speaker 1: more from Bruce Heedlam and Nana Cherry. We're back with
Speaker 1: more of Bruce Helam's conversation with Nana Cherry. Do you
Speaker 1: remember forming your own musical taste. I mean your stepdad
Speaker 1: was playing trumpet all the time, because that's what professional
Speaker 1: jazz musicians have to do. Was there a point you
Speaker 1: were listening to something else and saying, well, this is
Speaker 1: what I wanted with the Beatles, whatever it was. I mean,
Speaker 1: the problem is it's a problem is that if you
Speaker 1: look into the record collection that we still have, which
Speaker 1: was like the record collection that I grew up with,
Speaker 1: obviously things have been added to it over the years.
Speaker 1: It was such a mixture of stuff. So like my
Speaker 1: parents listened to everything from like recording made in the
Speaker 1: rainforest in in Zaire to the Commodores or the Rolling
Speaker 1: Stones or you know, so within that music I found
Speaker 1: my own shit. You know, like don bought and he
Speaker 1: was always like buying whatever was coming out. So I
Speaker 1: can remember being like six and listening to the Jackson five,
Speaker 1: the first Diana Ross Presents to Jackson five or Sly
Speaker 1: in the Family Stone and having favorites. I mean growing
Speaker 1: up in Sweden in the seventies, I mean all my
Speaker 1: friends were listening to like English music like the Sweet
Speaker 1: and a lot of my friends at school were like
Speaker 1: into Donnie Osmond and stuff, and I was, you know,
Speaker 1: it was like kind of surreal. And of course some
Speaker 1: of those classic like Sparks records and some of those
Speaker 1: you know, British kind of glam pop tunes. Abba. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. I spent a whole summer like miming to
Speaker 1: Abba songs with my friend. We did a whole show.
Speaker 1: And then I, like I was eleven, I went to
Speaker 1: LA to stay with my family there and I discovered
Speaker 1: like songs in the Key of Life Stevie Wonder and
Speaker 1: Johnny Guitar Watson and so it's all these parallels. And
Speaker 1: then at like fifteen fourteen fifteen, I got into punk.
Speaker 1: It was punk. Was that what told you that you
Speaker 1: wanted to do this for a living? Yeah? I think
Speaker 1: so it was there a song or an album that
Speaker 1: just grabbed you. X rayspects poly Styrene for sure. I
Speaker 1: think also her being like one of the only other
Speaker 1: women of color like on the punk scene there really
Speaker 1: wasn't that that many was obviously a thing. And then
Speaker 1: just her vibe but like she had braces on her teeth,
Speaker 1: she just made it looked so amazing, and her voice
Speaker 1: has this resonance and then this kind of bridge sonically
Speaker 1: that she made between almost like a kind of folky
Speaker 1: kind of tonality to then also being her music being
Speaker 1: very soulful. And I think I definitely found my voice
Speaker 1: singing along. Now, had you had you done formal music lessons,
Speaker 1: because no, not really. I mean, because you know something particularly,
Speaker 1: and I want to talk about man Child later. You know,
Speaker 1: that's it's a beautiful melody, and it's very sophisticated chords.
Speaker 1: It's it's a very unusual song. It's very complex, it's
Speaker 1: got different modes in it. Were those just things you
Speaker 1: were sensitive to? It was not something Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: just following. I was working with an autochord, a cassio
Speaker 1: keyboard that had an autochord settings on the left hand side,
Speaker 1: and I had one or two kind of melodies which
Speaker 1: were the you know, is it the pain of the
Speaker 1: drinking or the Sunday sinking feeling, which were the two
Speaker 1: first lines in the first verse, and then I just
Speaker 1: think I I sat with the auto chord, and I
Speaker 1: remember particularly in the second verse, and it just took
Speaker 1: the melodies into another place and I just kind of
Speaker 1: went went with it, and I just kind of kept
Speaker 1: my little tape recorder going so again, it was this
Speaker 1: kind of weird instinctual thing. So when someone comes in
Speaker 1: and says there's an e flat Dorian, You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever,
Speaker 1: And I'm in fact my dad was like, you know,
Speaker 1: you had seven chords in the verse. That's pretty okay, cool,
Speaker 1: yeah whatever. So, Punkers, what took you back to England? Right? Punkers?
Speaker 1: What took me to England in the first place? Really
Speaker 1: we didn't really It was not a place that I
Speaker 1: had really spent any time and growing up. And you
Speaker 1: went pretty young, but I went young. I mean I
Speaker 1: was sixteen and when I went there were your parents like,
Speaker 1: good luck, try and try and make a career in music. No,
Speaker 1: I mean it didn't really happen like that. It's funny.
Speaker 1: I was just on a journey, I guess, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd been I'd met the Slits, Arie and vivin Tessa.
Speaker 1: When my you know, when this is another thing, like
Speaker 1: so many of the threads of my things that have
Speaker 1: led from one thing to another, it's all kind of
Speaker 1: connected to my family, you know. Um So Don had
Speaker 1: toured with the Slits. They were like discovering jazz and
Speaker 1: they they was a great British punk band. We should yeah,
Speaker 1: all women, fantastic group. So he brought me on the
Speaker 1: tour so I and then towards the end of that tour,
Speaker 1: I met Ari. I mean Ari was we found each
Speaker 1: other kind of thing. We were became friends, and then
Speaker 1: she invited me to come and visit her. So I
Speaker 1: kind of came on, like you know, it was like summertime.
Speaker 1: I just came to hang out, ended up staying at
Speaker 1: her house. She was still living at her mom's house.
Speaker 1: And then we just kind of became inseparable, like really
Speaker 1: really close friends, and she sort of took me under
Speaker 1: her wing. And then I got a job working at
Speaker 1: this place called Better Badgers in Portobell Road, and I
Speaker 1: just kind of stayed and and then that led into
Speaker 1: the guys from the pop group forming a new band
Speaker 1: called Ripbrig and Panic and asking me to sing. So
Speaker 1: that's kind of how making music kind of happened really,
Speaker 1: So then lead us up to the making of the
Speaker 1: first album, Raw Like Sushi. How did that come about?
Speaker 1: So I'd been in Riprig and Panic, then Float Up CP,
Speaker 1: and then I'd made a sort of independent thing that
Speaker 1: came out on Island Records called Ross Eggs Pure energy,
Speaker 1: and and then I met Cameron, who I'm still married too,
Speaker 1: and who's been my kind of, you know, lifelong travel
Speaker 1: friend collaborator, and he just kind of said to me
Speaker 1: at some point like why don't you Why are you
Speaker 1: not writing songs like you should write? And I wrote
Speaker 1: a song called looking in the Eyes of Love and
Speaker 1: I sang it. I mean, I just wrote it in
Speaker 1: my head and I sang it in on a cassette
Speaker 1: and put it through his letterbox, his mailbox, and then
Speaker 1: like a few hours later he called me up and
Speaker 1: he had put chords to it and it was a song.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh shit, that's amazing. And Buffalo Stance
Speaker 1: was a kind of weird coincidence, right, which is what
Speaker 1: kind of then led the album, because it had been
Speaker 1: on the B side of this record called Looking Good
Speaker 1: Diving by Morgan mcvagh, one of those people being my
Speaker 1: husband Cameron, and they had this idea of like doing
Speaker 1: almost like a remix of their tune, which was very
Speaker 1: pop pop so to do like a dare I say,
Speaker 1: cooler B side, so so no disrespect. So we kind
Speaker 1: of spent an afternoon just in mining Cameron's flat, as
Speaker 1: we say on it you know, using some of the
Speaker 1: elements of the original and just rewriting the lyrics. I
Speaker 1: wrote the raps, we wrote the chorus and the bridge together.
Speaker 1: And then Nellie Hooper, who like produced, sold to Soul
Speaker 1: and DJ Milo. They were kind of part of the
Speaker 1: Wild Bunch, which then became Massive Attack, so they produced
Speaker 1: that and then that just kind of disappeared a little bit.
Speaker 1: And then my friend Tim Simonon, who was part of
Speaker 1: Bomb the Bass, he sort of led Bomb the Bass,
Speaker 1: heard it, he really liked it, and so he wanted
Speaker 1: to recut it. So that's how Buffalo Stance happened because
Speaker 1: without him, I mean talk about looking forward, well, I
Speaker 1: mean we were like already passed it, do you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? I guess first of all, I should
Speaker 1: ask you, did this success surprise you? Then when it
Speaker 1: became a big hit, we were on a small tour
Speaker 1: around England or maybe a little bit in Europe with
Speaker 1: Bomb the Bass, and I was just I mean, I
Speaker 1: was pregnant. I had a MC with me called Gilly Gee.
Speaker 1: I guess we were just kind of playing off backing
Speaker 1: tracks and we did three songs and Buffalo Dance was
Speaker 1: the last song in the set. And we noticed as
Speaker 1: we were kind of going around the country that people
Speaker 1: were starting to recognize it. And I remember one night
Speaker 1: sitting on my bed in our house in West London
Speaker 1: and there was this kind of late night American Top
Speaker 1: ten with Casey Cason that you know, and every week
Speaker 1: he would show a kind of something climbing up the chart,
Speaker 1: something that's drawing a bit of attention to it, and
Speaker 1: lo and behold there was a little clip of Buffalo
Speaker 1: Stance and I was just like, oh my god, this
Speaker 1: is because at that point it was still very kind
Speaker 1: of European and it had just started to spill into
Speaker 1: to hear. What's amazing about that song to me is
Speaker 1: how different it is from a lot of music that
Speaker 1: was coming out in England at that point, which was
Speaker 1: like massive attack on those bands. You know, they would
Speaker 1: try and get a groove going. It was often a
Speaker 1: pretty simple melodic idea. Buffalo Stance has so many different
Speaker 1: voices in it. I know they're all your voice, but
Speaker 1: you know it's like if you count them. It starts
Speaker 1: with you saying you want to beat You're throwing a
Speaker 1: little expletive there. Then you have that very English accent
Speaker 1: introducing the high hat, the high hat, then you have
Speaker 1: so that's two. Then you start rapping. Now, had you
Speaker 1: wrapped a lot by that point? Yeah, definitely a bit
Speaker 1: like I think that my as I was kind of
Speaker 1: doing my own thing, being such a part of that
Speaker 1: era and it being such a kind of important part
Speaker 1: of what was going on and inspiring and influential. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you were kind of it was kind of a
Speaker 1: no brainer, and it became a really interesting way of
Speaker 1: telling stories. So you know, you can just like be
Speaker 1: a bit more blatant in a rap. So you wrap
Speaker 1: the verses and then you've got the jiggalo sucker or
Speaker 1: that little scratch break, and then you've got your singing
Speaker 1: voice for the pre chorus and the chorus, So that's
Speaker 1: your singing voice, but it doesn't stop that. Then you've
Speaker 1: got that spoken break though. What's he like? Now? Was
Speaker 1: that a real conversation? How did you? How did that
Speaker 1: come up? I mean that kind of comes from a
Speaker 1: friend of mine whose name is fat Tony, who's a
Speaker 1: DJ and just a really close friend. I've known him
Speaker 1: for millions of years and we spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time out dancing together and out and he would look
Speaker 1: at people and go, Oh my god, what's he like?
Speaker 1: What's she liked? Oh God, look at her? And so
Speaker 1: it was like just it just came into my head
Speaker 1: when right there when we were kind of doing ad libs.
Speaker 1: But then you you go back to the chorus, but
Speaker 1: then you've got that whole different part that it's a
Speaker 1: wind in my face. Oh yeah, the kind of little
Speaker 1: poem at the end. So I'm just that's like seven
Speaker 1: or eight kind of different voices in one song. It's
Speaker 1: all it reminds me of maybe it's a schizophrenic tune.
Speaker 1: I've never thought, well, no, no, it reminds me of
Speaker 1: all like Beatles songs like Day in the Life for
Speaker 1: you Never Give Me Your Money, like Paul McCartney will
Speaker 1: use like three different voices. Yeah, it's such a full song.
Speaker 1: It was just it's what makes it so different to
Speaker 1: me kind of quirky. I think, like I find it
Speaker 1: hard to kind of be very analytical and to intellectualize
Speaker 1: about it, but I think it was just like one
Speaker 1: of them. Well I don't know if I'm very good
Speaker 1: at that, especially not with jet lag, but I think
Speaker 1: like a very important element of maybe that time was
Speaker 1: this kind of like fighting against the kind of any
Speaker 1: kind of restrictions, do you know what I mean. It
Speaker 1: was like, well, we don't have to like we can
Speaker 1: refer to stuff without it restricting us, you know. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna rap, and then you know we're sort of
Speaker 1: ultimately in a way without wanting to sell out, still
Speaker 1: making pop records, you know what I mean, and over heroes.
Speaker 1: It was sold as a rap record, you know, as
Speaker 1: you probably know, I'm like rap and hip hop is
Speaker 1: like really an important part of like my upbringing and
Speaker 1: my identity. Like I was so in awe and loved
Speaker 1: MC light and you know, Queen Latifa, and you know,
Speaker 1: there were all these amazing women actually on the Roxanne Chantey.
Speaker 1: I have to be honest and say, of course, help
Speaker 1: me find my voice. But you know, in my eyes,
Speaker 1: I was never as cool as them. They were like
Speaker 1: an inspiration to me. But you know what I was doing,
Speaker 1: I would say, it's not that it wasn't authentic, but
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, it was something else. So
Speaker 1: I would never really have been comfortable and saying like, yo,
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm like I can kind of rap, but
Speaker 1: I'm not a rapper, like in the sense that give
Speaker 1: me a mic and I'll freestyle for half an hour now.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately I wish, okay, no, we're going to do that
Speaker 1: right here. Yeah, no, I wish. I mean in my dreams.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more from Nana Cherry after
Speaker 1: the break, we're back with the rest of Bruce Headland's
Speaker 1: conversation with Nana Cherry. You talked a bit about writing Manchild,
Speaker 1: and you talked about how you wrote that the melody
Speaker 1: in the chords. You know, it's also a song that's
Speaker 1: full of great lines that reminds me of some of
Speaker 1: your later stuff, like on the Blank Project or Fallen Leaves,
Speaker 1: which was on your last album, which was just such
Speaker 1: a beautiful song. It's got that great line, you know,
Speaker 1: through the speaker boxes louds my diagnosis I believe in
Speaker 1: miracles and words and heavy doses, which I thought was
Speaker 1: just great, great line. Who are your lyrical influences then?
Speaker 1: Actually a big inspiration for me lyrically. I mean, I
Speaker 1: love Mini Ripperton. I was just talking about her in
Speaker 1: the car on the way here, but also Gareth Sager,
Speaker 1: who was in the pop group and then in Ripberg
Speaker 1: and Panic. He wrote the songs and a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, I sang his lyrics kind of. I mean
Speaker 1: I was like really young and sometimes I didn't really
Speaker 1: understand what I was but playing with words, and I
Speaker 1: think reggae music like moving to England and living there
Speaker 1: in the early eighties. I mean, all those Gregory Isaacs
Speaker 1: and Dennis Brown and going to sound systems were also
Speaker 1: like a huge influence. But I think lyrically, I mean
Speaker 1: it's it's like a combination of things. You know. Are
Speaker 1: you the kind that has to sit down every day
Speaker 1: to do some writing? No, I don't. I should do,
Speaker 1: but I don't. I think it would be quite good
Speaker 1: for me if I did. But when you've got an
Speaker 1: album coming up, then you just make yourself. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I definitely have a kind of getting inside, and
Speaker 1: there's a waiting room and the battle is to kind
Speaker 1: of get inside. There's a zone, you know. I quite
Speaker 1: often maybe get slightly obsessed when I'm writing lyrics and
Speaker 1: looking for things and waiting for the to get the
Speaker 1: kind of click in my head, you know. I mean
Speaker 1: you have to use for me life experiences, you know,
Speaker 1: to me, they are like stories, you know, telling a story.
Speaker 1: And when I start a song, it's like I need
Speaker 1: to find the grain, Like, what is this song about?
Speaker 1: Where am I? Can I give you an example from
Speaker 1: Fallen Leaves? Yeah, just because I'm down, don't stop all
Speaker 1: over me? Yeah, just as an example that's at the
Speaker 1: end of a long of course. But what was that about?
Speaker 1: How did you? How did you get there? I started
Speaker 1: writing that song I lived quite near to the canal
Speaker 1: in London, and I know I was walking on the
Speaker 1: canal and it was literally like probably a quite autumnal
Speaker 1: thing going on, and and I just had this sense
Speaker 1: of you know, when you're just like hearing traffic and
Speaker 1: the world going on around and I think I was
Speaker 1: thinking about most people that would like to indulge in
Speaker 1: your story when you're on the ground and aren't that interested.
Speaker 1: M were you? Did you go through something like that
Speaker 1: at that point? There? Something? I mean, I'm I'm a
Speaker 1: human in life. I've gone through all kinds of shit,
Speaker 1: you know, as we do. But I just think that
Speaker 1: I it's it's pretty hard to not be aware of
Speaker 1: that kind of the vultures come and sit by you
Speaker 1: when you're actually down on the ground, when you're up
Speaker 1: running along. I think so ultimately, I guess it's maybe
Speaker 1: a song about survival. Actually, well, we haven't talked enough
Speaker 1: about the new album. Yeah, And one of the great
Speaker 1: treats on this album for me and I think it's
Speaker 1: going to be for a lot of people, is the
Speaker 1: version of woman yes by you know, who brings a complete,
Speaker 1: huge set of experiences to the song. So tell me
Speaker 1: first about writing the original that was on your third album,
Speaker 1: It was on Man Yep. What inspired that song? I
Speaker 1: mean womanhood, being a woman shamelessly wanting to write a
Speaker 1: song about what that means, not having to make any excuses,
Speaker 1: you know, like, Okay, this is a woman. I think also,
Speaker 1: like Dawn, my dad was there. I was I might
Speaker 1: have been pregnant with Mabel, and he was kind of dying,
Speaker 1: not kind of, And I think there was also maybe
Speaker 1: a more complex thing going on where you know, I
Speaker 1: was creating a child, you know, Mabel was in utero.
Speaker 1: I was also a daughter to my dad who was dying,
Speaker 1: And there were so many reflections of my own womanhood
Speaker 1: going on around me, and being thirty three or something
Speaker 1: and having had a just kind of coming over a
Speaker 1: threshold of coming out of the twenties into the thirties,
Speaker 1: and you know, you're trying to find your so called
Speaker 1: authentic self or something like that. Anyway, it's a song,
Speaker 1: and it's a song that sometimes has also annoyed me
Speaker 1: because I found it sometimes that like I've found it
Speaker 1: sometimes a bit restricting and sometimes in later years, I
Speaker 1: found the production a bit like pompous with strings and
Speaker 1: you know, this is a woman's world, you know, Like
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, I don't I kind
Speaker 1: of wanted to take it out of the box. And
Speaker 1: I think that's what I know. And he's done. She's
Speaker 1: just made it bleed more in a way that I
Speaker 1: think is really like it really needed to happen. Now,
Speaker 1: the original I assumed was a bit of the strings
Speaker 1: and everything you were trying to evoke the James Brown
Speaker 1: It's a man's world. Was that deliberate? I wouldn't say that.
Speaker 1: I would dare to say that it was an answer,
Speaker 1: but it was a part of the discussion. There's two
Speaker 1: other projects I want to ask you, but briefly, the
Speaker 1: first was the Cherry Thing, which is when you did
Speaker 1: free form jazz much closer to the stuff, Yeah, stepfather did.
Speaker 1: What was that like? To tell you the truth, I
Speaker 1: think that Cherry Thing record kind of saved my life,
Speaker 1: and it kind of brought me back into being able
Speaker 1: to make records because I hadn't made a record for
Speaker 1: seventeen years or something when I made that, And I
Speaker 1: guess it was just like kind of stepping into a
Speaker 1: zone and music that was kind of like in my
Speaker 1: very much in my DNA, and there was a kind
Speaker 1: of freedom, and I felt so harnessed by the musicians,
Speaker 1: and we did more or less most of the records.
Speaker 1: Songs on that record are cover versions, So we chose
Speaker 1: three songs and we did one take of each, you know,
Speaker 1: and a lot of things had happened. My mother had died,
Speaker 1: you know, not four years or three years before that,
Speaker 1: and I had been totally traumatized by that, and I'd
Speaker 1: of course been collaborating and doing music along the way
Speaker 1: and bringing up the family and then but just yeah,
Speaker 1: just getting to that place where it was like I
Speaker 1: knew that if I didn't do something soon, I was
Speaker 1: going to kind of crack up, do you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. It was like I was way down, I think,
Speaker 1: with too much stuff. It was part of the just
Speaker 1: expectations that if you come out with the solo album
Speaker 1: years after your last one was man, I guess yeah,
Speaker 1: and like not quite knowing where I wanted to go,
Speaker 1: even though I had a very strong sense in a
Speaker 1: way of where I wanted to go. But there was
Speaker 1: something in that Cherry Thing experience where I could fly.
Speaker 1: And it was very amazing to just work with the musicians,
Speaker 1: to feel that we were so connected, and to improvise
Speaker 1: a lot of the time, well, you were going to
Speaker 1: a place that would terrify most people, just pure improvisation.
Speaker 1: I think it was really important. I mean, we had structure,
Speaker 1: but there was a kind of I felt like harnessed
Speaker 1: and like they were pushing me at the same time,
Speaker 1: but kind of the music was there holding me up.
Speaker 1: And I think that that departure away from that kind
Speaker 1: of thing in pop music that can be slightly self
Speaker 1: conscious and kind of wrapped up in itself was so great.
Speaker 1: And then I kind of came back in So I
Speaker 1: made the Cherry Thing record, and then Karen Hebden Fortet
Speaker 1: remixed the suicide song Dream Baby Dream that we did
Speaker 1: a version of on that record, and then we then
Speaker 1: made two records together after And I'll finish on this
Speaker 1: because it interests me, you know. We we've talked about
Speaker 1: Buffalo Stance, which was such a great song, such a
Speaker 1: huge song, and then you had money Love after that,
Speaker 1: and a couple other big hits. Seven Seconds, I guess
Speaker 1: seven seconds might have been the biggest hit of all
Speaker 1: of them actually in Europe, not so much here, But
Speaker 1: but if you were, if you were American artist, you
Speaker 1: might be. You wouldn't be a one hit wonder because
Speaker 1: you had more than one hit, but you would be.
Speaker 1: The gravitational pull of those songs would be very heavy.
Speaker 1: You'd be, yeah, performing them on cruises or in casinos
Speaker 1: or something like that. So that's my absolute nightmares. But
Speaker 1: you've you've managed to keep this start with this hugely
Speaker 1: popular record, and you keep doing very experimental work. Is
Speaker 1: being in Europe, is living in England? Is that more
Speaker 1: conducive to that kind of work? I don't think it's
Speaker 1: so much about where you are. It's about what you do,
Speaker 1: you know. And I think that there was a part
Speaker 1: of me that found that, like fine, I could go
Speaker 1: and do the whole pop thing and turn up at
Speaker 1: the Smash Hits Awards. And we had our little crew
Speaker 1: and our family of people, and you know, sure made
Speaker 1: some mistakes along the way, but we tried to do
Speaker 1: things new way, in our way, and to kind of
Speaker 1: keep it as close to our hearts as we could.
Speaker 1: But but I just found that there I just couldn't
Speaker 1: stay in the straight line inside, you know, on that
Speaker 1: treadmill where it was like, okay, you make more records
Speaker 1: that sound like Buffalo's Stance, or make more And I'm sure,
Speaker 1: of course I could have maybe have had more success
Speaker 1: and made more money and sold more records, but it
Speaker 1: just wasn't really so much where I belonged, you know.
Speaker 1: And I found that I worked really hard and I
Speaker 1: learned a lot, and I'm really thankful, but there were
Speaker 1: also elements of it that I was like, it's not
Speaker 1: really what I'm living my life for. Yeah, I you know,
Speaker 1: made some conscious decisions to absolutely keep varying to the left.
Speaker 1: So what's next, you know, Yeah, I'm just about to
Speaker 1: go into writing some new music. I haven't made any
Speaker 1: new music for a while, maybe not to make an album.
Speaker 1: Maybe it will be more in the shape of like
Speaker 1: an EP or something like that to start with, Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll come back when you're done. Well, I will certainly
Speaker 1: try to do so. Okay, thank you very much. Thanks,
Speaker 1: It's been a complete delight and people should Everybody should
Speaker 1: be going out listening to this and all your other
Speaker 1: albums too. It's all there to be had, Go and listen.
Speaker 1: Thanks Nina Cherry for sharing stories from her and her
Speaker 1: family's supremely creative life. To hear a new album the
Speaker 1: versions as well as our favorite Nina Cherry songs. Check
Speaker 1: out the playlist at broken record podcast dot com. You
Speaker 1: should have subscribed to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot
Speaker 1: com slash broken Record Podcast, where we can find all
Speaker 1: of our new other starts. You can follow us on
Speaker 1: Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced help from
Speaker 1: Lea Rose, Jason Gambrel, Ben Holiday, Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez,
Speaker 1: with engineering help from Nick Chaffey. Our executive produce sir
Speaker 1: is Mia Label. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: If you like this show and others from Pushkin, consider
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Speaker 1: app or theme music spect Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond,