Urban Mama

Rip It Up, Issue 145, 1 August 1989, Page 12

Urban Mama

Getting Down with Neneh Cherry

Well, Neneh Cherry; Malcolm McLaren says you're justdoing whathe did, but with a pretty face. “Ha! Someone said to me, I'm so glad that you could go and rip Malcolm McLaren off, because he’sbeen ripping everyone else offfor so long. It wasn’t ripping him off, of course, but I thought that was so funny. It was so obvious— ‘Buffalo Stance’: “Buffalo Girls’; y'’know.” ForNeneh Cherry, the pastis closerthanitused to be, and the future looks bright. The pastis closer, because instead of dipping into her 70s record collection for samples, she scratched Malcolm McLaren's eight year-old single ‘Buffalo Girls', using it on ‘Buffalo Stance’. And the future is bright, because ‘Buffalo Stance’ was

abonafide hit. In NZ, its follow-up single ‘Manchild' is one of the strongesttunes on radio playlists — and that's nice, because Neneh Cherry’s singles, like her album, are radical fusions of funk and hip-hop, full of samples, raps, stout vocal challenges and a dance energy that borders oninsolence. ~ NenehCherryisachildofthe modem dance. She's an infelligent talker, a muscled mover. Youmight recall her name alongside Rip Rig And Panic, a band of which she was a member. Rip Rig were making alot of noise about themselves just as this whole modern dance thing was beginning to breakiinto the pop mainstream. Black grooves were

fusing with white technology, Kraftwerk were bumping into Afrika Bambaataa — you know the story, right? Now we're basking in the afterburn of modern dance.

Everything's crossed over so many times, it'shardto know where anything stands. ; “| think that we're all far more aware of what went down in the last 20 yearsthan people were 20 years ago when they looked back. That's the availability of communication that you've got now — you can sit down and watch Woodstock on TV. We're farmore open in a way, and that's ‘why music is becoming more open. You listen to the De La Soul album andsure, it's basically hip-hop, but you can hear more — soul, 70s songs, Walt Disney.” - People wax lyrical about the virtues of naivity in popular music — do you thinkit's harderto find that sort of naivety now? “The best things that are coming outare really naive, still, because people are capable of breaking the

rules. Asfaras'm concerned, people have an awareness, and

that's good, but they also feel they can do something themselves. They know about all these old songs, and they use them, they're playing around with them. It's great when you'rein the studio; you canfinda song that matches what you're doing, and make a break out of it, a drum roll, orloopitinto atrack. l'slike a giant puzzle. And to me, credtively, thatis really ... exciting.” | remember an old Rip Rig and Panicinterview when you were

slagging anyone who had anything to do with drum machines or

synthesisers; now you work with very little else.

“|found what happened to people when synthesisers and drum machines first came out was very

embarrassing. People stopped playing the machines, and the machines played the people. Now

people are actually playing them — playingthem — so they're like new instruments rather than computers. People are takingthem farless seriously now than they did a few years ago. Kraftwerk have done some great music, so have Fripp and Eno—they werethestartofthat sound. And then guys like Teddy Riley came along, making synths sound jazzy, or whatever. Those people did whatthey did with a certain kind of passion. But the ones who followed in their footsteps lostit. “So lknow why | said what| said when | said that! A lot of barriers have been broken down since then. ‘One thingthat machines have done is to give people who may not have any formal, technical ability, a way of making music. Now they can throw the manual away once they've learned how to operate the instument. - ; - "Ifs greatbecause the kids that are buying records can also sit down now and make records. That's why the energy now on the dance scene is very similar to the energy thatwas on the punk scene. The people that are young are making sounds, and there's a hell of alot of difference between that and a bunch of over-bred session playersmaking music which they think people want to hear.”

Neneh's mother is a Swedish artist, and her real father of West African origin. But she was raised with

avant-garde trumpet man Don Cherry as adad, and a lot of his influence has creeped through

(You might have seen Don Cherry when he in NZ with Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell as ‘Old And New Dreams’. Charley Grey toured them herein 1980.) :

Since then she’s hob-nobbed with some of the cooler individuals in pop There was Rip Rig & Panic, Float Up CP; now there's Judy Blame, Phill Chill, and Bomb The Bass men Mark Saunders and Tim Simenon.

Simenon produced ‘Buffalo Stance’, but his name only features once on the Neneh Cherry album; how much of your sound and success is relianton him?

“| don'tthink | could say that I've relied on anybody. We just like each other. He's cool to the music | like,

which is the mostimportant thing. Tim is easy, Y know; he likes the same ideas and we work together well. | feel really easy about the stuff that we do; | can goin and trust him. It wasn't really a question of him doing something for me— we did ‘Buffalo Stance’together, at the same time. We've got asimilar aftitude. -

“Sometimes | know what | like but| don’tknow how to getwhat| like out of myself; Tim is one of those people who's really good at gefting that. It's nice balance. S

“Buffalo Stance’is the only track that he produced on this album. The tracks ‘Manchild’ and ‘Heart, we didn’treally know whatto do with, so he came into the studio and finalised things. So that's a healthy exchange — betterthangivingasongto - someone who's completely insensifive to what you're doing, who then goes off and makes it into their thing.” How did you meet Simenon? “Justfrom around town. Whether you're in a city as big asLondon ora village, the longer you stay, the smaller it gets. I'm automatically drawn fo a certain type of person, I'm always hunting for my people, y’know?2 Tim's part of the family. | met him and | thought yeah, | know you — I know where you're coming from.” One of Bomb The Bass's founding

maxims was a search for a dance sound that London town could callits own. : “If we're talking dance music, a lot of the initial ideas come from America, but England's starting to make its own interpretation of that. They've been very dogmatic in their following of what's been happening here for along time; now if's moving in a direction; you've got Bomb the Bass, Soul to Soul; they take their music from a lot of places and | guess -we've got a lot of the same energy. “But England’s a good placeto work. People will letyou be, you're allowedto carry on with whateverit is you wanna do without being pressured.” Who else would you like to work - with? “There's a couple of people over here that I'm starting to hook up with, like Red Alert, he's a DJ who does a hip-hop show on Kiss FM. He does things like Boogie Down productions, the Jungle Brothers and De La Soul —dllthose people, what they're doing now is very significant. They've made the hip-hop thing a great successin the States.” Atthe moment Neneh'sin New York, rehearsing for live dates witha band, and reflects on the musical - differences between the two cities. “It's pretty similar. Unfortunately Acid House is beginning to break herel Otherwise it's prefty close, - especially between New York and London. When you go outin London you do hear a bigger variation of music, not just hip-hop. Here you hear more dance music—mixes ratherthantunes.” E Whatdo you thinkwill bethe characteristics of English music when itfindsitsfeeton the dancefloore “Ithink it is finding ifs feet. Soul Il Soulis the biggest dance record in this country, you hear it everywhere. If'satraditional R&Bformula together with that street sound, if's gotthatgarage, slick feel — it's killing people. Soul has followed hip hopin the studio. The sound which we've all been raised with has been taken and made into something different. So England’s standing in a really good place atthe moment. Also, England has a reggae heritage, and you can feelitinthe songs.” Are you missing London? . “I miss my friends and | miss my house and things like that, butit's nice here. We're outin the country, and it'squietand green. If | was at home, gee, | dunno. l'd be catchingupon my social life and wearing myself out!”

CHAD TAYLOR

“The people thatare young are making sounds. There’sahell of a difference between thatand abunch of over-bred session players making music that they thinkpeople wantto hear.” :

-~ = 3 t 3