Neneh Cherry, singer, writer, is sipping tea and talking about a party back in the day. “I keep thinking about it,” she says. “It was the first party I brought Naima to. I was 18, Naima was a baby, so it was in the early 80s. The party was at Jeannette Lee’s house. We had a white sling for Naima, and we were at the party, and Gareth Sager was going out with Jeannette. Anyway, Jeannette said: ‘Oh, can I take Naima in the sling?’ I was like: ‘God, yes, great. I can let my hair down for a minute.’ And there was a piano there, and Mark Springer was playing the piano, and Naima was fine, she was sleeping. We were all there. Together. I’ve been thinking about it maybe because Tyson, my daughter, has had a child, and she just took her to a festival, We Out Here… Anyway, that party, I feel like things came from there. That centre. When other things happened, different successes, that was always there first.”
What Cherry is talking about is family. Family through blood, family through friendship, family through music. A quick recap of the characters mentioned reveals the connections: Lee was in Public Image Ltd and now co-owns Rough Trade Records; Sager was in Rip Rig + Panic with Cherry, as was Springer. Naima and Tyson (and Cherry’s other daughter, Mabel) are musicians and singers. And Cherry’s wonderful new memoir, A Thousand Threads, is a personal history that has such connections woven all the way through. If you were to draw Cherry’s family tree, it would be a complicated picture, and, for her, would include long-term friends so close that they are a part of her clan.
