[4][5] Her musical career started in London in the early 1980s, where she performed in a number of punk and post-punk bands in her youth, including the Slits and Rip Rig + Panic.

Her first, Raw Like Sushi, was released in 1989 and peaked at number two on the UK Album Chart,[6] thanks in large part to the worldwide hit single "Buffalo Stance".

Jah was born in Sierra Leone, West Africa, the son of a tribal chief, and went to Stockholm to study engineering at university.

[7] Her parents separated soon after her birth and her mother married the American jazz musician Don Cherry, who helped raise Neneh.

[8][9] In the early 1970s, the family moved to the United States, when Don Cherry taught at Dartmouth College.

[10] In 1977 the family bought a loft in New York City in the same building as Talking Heads members Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, whom they befriended.

[12] Cherry moved to the United Kingdom when she was 15, in the midst of the punk era, and she remembers finding "her people" there.

She felt at home, after ending up there because The Slits invited Don Cherry to go on tour with them with Prince Hammer and Creation Rebel.

She moved through several bands, including the Slits, New Age Steppers, Rip Rig + Panic, and Float Up CP.

She worked with Jonny Dollar, the The and Cameron McVey (aka Booga Bear), who co-wrote most of her 1989 debut album Raw Like Sushi, and whom she later married.

[4] She was intimately involved in the Bristol Urban Culture scene, working as an arranger on Massive Attack's Blue Lines album, through which she met Dollar.

Both Robert Del Naja and Andrew Vowles of Massive Attack contributed to Raw Like Sushi.

She also found success with "I've Got You Under My Skin", a reworking of the Cole Porter song, which appeared on the Red Hot + Blue AIDS fundraising album.

Cherry caused a press furore when she performed "Buffalo Stance" on Top of the Pops while pregnant (with her second child, Tyson).

"Buddy X" reached number 4 on the Billboard Dance Club Music Charts where it spent a total of 11 weeks.

singer Michael Stipe who helped to co-write the track along with Cherry, McVey, and Jonathan Sharp and contains samples of a guitar riff from Steppenwolf as well as drums by John Bonham.

With airplay on college radio and increased popularity, "Trout" spent a total of 14 weeks on Billboard′s Alternative Music Charts where it reached number 2.

[25] Broken Politics, her second album to be produced by Four Tet,[26] was released on 19 October 2018, and has been called "quieter and more reflective" than Blank Project by Cherry.

CirKus toured Europe, with a single North American performance at the Montreal Jazz Festival in July 2006 plus a few dates in Brazil in 2008.

[30] The Thing is a Norwegian/Swedish jazz trio, consisting of Mats Gustafsson (saxophones), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (double bass), and Paal Nilssen-Love (drums).

She said that while "Buffalo Stance" gave her a mainstream crossover moment in the U.S., she found the American music industry stiflingly attached to labels and genre identities.

[17] Cherry appeared in a non-singing capacity in Big Audio Dynamite's videos for "Medicine Show" (1985), and "C'mon Every Beatbox" (1986), dancing onstage with others during the band's performance.

In April 2007, she presented a six-part cookery show Neneh and Andi – Dish It Up with her friend Andrea Oliver for BBC Two.

[47] In 1986, Cherry met producer and Morgan-McVey[50] member Cameron "Booga Bear" McVey at Heathrow Airport.

Cherry and McVey were en route to Japan as fashion models as part of London designer Ray Petri's Buffalo Posse.

[59] Together they have supported a variety of British acts and they were in the group cirKus together, with Cameron McVey known as Burt Ford[60][61] and Tyson as Lolita Moon during this time.

[63] On her street style, Cherry cites LL Cool J as an influence, as well as the photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Judy Blame, and designer Ray Petri.