Neneh Cherry

“When 'Raw Like Sushi' came out in the U.S., I wasn't considered to be black enough. They didn't really know where to put me. The music wasn't 'black black' sounding. It wasn't R&B; it wasn't straight up hip-hop, although obviously in that dimension and world.”

“My daughters are my Picassos.”

“To me, a song is a song when you can sit in a room and just sing it from end to end.”

“I don't live my life through my kids, nor do I expect them to live theirs through mine. But of course, they're everything.”

“When I was going to school, I just wanted to be like everybody else. I would pull at my hair to try and get it to lie straight. America was where I would consume and absorb black culture, buy Ultra Sheen and watch 'Soul Train,' but I still had that weird in-between thing.”

“I try not to be superstitious, but, you know, we never put any shoes on the table. That's totally against the law in our house. And I always salute when I see one magpie.”

“I don't think I would have made 'Blank Project; if I hadn't made 'Cherry Thing.' I think that was a real rebirth in a way, and a remembrance of how I like to make music best, the most. Like being in a more chaotic place, maybe. Like a place of making and being creative where the mistakes can be left in.”

“I don't think you can cover a song unless you love it and have a relationship with it. With 'Golden Heart' I felt a sense of responsibility. And when we were recording it in the studio, it felt almost dream-like. Something you might hear if you were in Senegal, with someone singing from the mosque in the morning just as the sun's coming up.”

“If you want to make God happy, tell him your plans.”

“I've never been very good at fitting into boxes.”

“Who needs a handbag? I put my money in my bra.”

“I was a punk when I was 15 - I was definitely into it in a big way and loved it - but I came to London when punk was maybe where you'd say punk is dead.”

“I found my place when I moved to London, where I chose to live, making my own tribe who were all from different backgrounds and places. The class thing is very dominant there, but in the cultural cross-fertilization, I felt a sense of belonging.”

“I am not super-ambitious. I am not a classically amazing singer or anything.”

“I'm a bit of a rebel, and I always will be.”

“When you lose a parent, you realize how vital they are to the foundation of your life. It's impossible to understand what it means until that curtain is pulled. You're an orphan. But then I think that life is kind of remarkable, and the thing that causes the biggest pain can also bring amazing energy.”

“I think I've grown up in a mixed environment, and maybe a lot of the time I haven't really belonged anywhere in the way I've dreamt of belonging to, you know, living on the street and playing to all the kids on the street, growing up together. I suppose 'Raw Like Sushi' was a place where all of those things could come together.”

“I'm allergic to doing the obvious thing.”

“A lot of young musicians in Stockholm are about keeping tradition alive and moving it forward at the same time.”

“I've always worked with my partner, my husband, Cameron, since 'Raw Like Sushi,' and in a way, I feel very free with what I do, but he also has an amazing insight in having intuitions that tend to be right a lot of the time, about where we should go next.”