Neneh Cherry - ‘My mother’s death undid me.’

How To Fail With Elizabeth Day

If you’d told the 12-year-old me, listening to Manchild and Buffalo Stance on repeat at school in Belfast, that I would one day be interviewing Neneh Cherry, I wouldn’t have believed you. This woman is so iconic and has shaped so much of our culture - it’s not just her monster hits such as Seven Seconds (with Youssou N’Dour) or the fact that Massive Attack recorded their seminal first album in her bedroom, or that she’s met everyone from James Baldwin to Chuck D, it’s also that all three of her children are musicians too, including her daughter, chart-topping popstar Mabel (and former How To Fail guest - you can listen to her episode here).

Neneh joins me to talk about an unconventional and itinerant upbringing, surrounded by music, art and expression. We chat about creativity and self-doubt, about motherhood and sisterhood and about how she once spectacularly failed to make pizza for Ian Dury.

Neneh’s beautiful memoir ‘A Thousand Threads’ is out now.

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Production & Post Production Manager: Lily Hambly

Studio and Mix Engineer: Gulliver Tickell and Josh Gibbs

Senior Producer: Selina Ream

Executive Producer: Carly Maile

Head of Marketing: Kieran Lancini

How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production.

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