A Thousand Threads: A Memoir

Swedish singer-songwriter Cherry shares stories of her life and career. She was born in Stockholm in 1964 to textile artist and painter Monika “Moki” Karlsson and West African musician Ahmadu Jah, who separated six months after her birth. Moki then married American jazz trumpeter Don Cherry. Neneh’s unconventional childhood (along with her half-brother, Eagle-Eye Cherry) was often divided between rural Sweden and urban New York, before she moved to London at 15 in 1980. She began her musical career performing in punk bands like the Slits and Rip Rig + Panic before gaining fame as a solo artist and breaking barriers by performing her hit single “Buffalo Stance” while seven months pregnant with her second child. Cherry does not shy away from discussing the racism she and her family experienced living in both countries; Don’s heroin addiction; the rape she survived as a 16-year-old in London; and her struggles with anxiety and alcohol. Cherry is at her lyrical best when describing her love of cooking and childhood street life in New York City, her visit to meet her biological father’s family in Sierra Leone, and the power of songwriting and women artists.