A Year of Blind Spots: Raw like Sushi

Joe is working through a list of albums that he considers "blind spots," i.e. albums that he's never heard but feels like he should.

Raw like Sushi

Neneh Cherry

1989

What 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die has to say about Raw like Sushi by Neneh Cherry:

"It's not a feminist record," Neneh Cherry told Face magazine in 1988 about her debut, "...but it's about female strength, female power, female attitude." So runs the agenda for the Neneh Cherry manifesto. A cover of a Morgan McVey B-side, "Buffalo Stance," introduced Cherry's trademark blend of popular urban styles, streetwise sweetness, and her pride in being a woman and mother. These motifs permeate the album, co-written and produced by partner Boogie Bear (Cameron McVey, producer of Massive Attack's Blue Lines).

An early nomad, she traveled extensively with her mother, Swedish artist Moki, and famous jazz trumpeter stepfather Don Cherry. But it was at fifteen that Cherry first visited West Africa with her birth father, Sierra Leonese percussionist Amhadu Jah, and discovered the power of the maternal African woman. After spending time in New York with punk band the Slits, she moved to London in 1980 to play with jazz/funk hybrid Rip, Rig and Panic, and had her first child at eighteen years old.

While tracks like "Heart" and "Phony Ladies" are scathing attacks on the fuckleness of petty social and gender concerns, tracks like "Inna City Mamma" and "The Next Generation" pay homage to the independent, strong mother figure Cherry represents. She appeared on Top of the Pops eight months pregnant (in skintight Lycra, no less), and featured her two-month-old daughter Tyson in the clip for "Manchild." The album sold two and a half million copies, and through Cherry's charm, infectious melodies, and sweet voice, it reaches a far wider audience than the individual genres she flirted with—hip hop, dance, rap, pop—usually allow.

What Joe has to say about Raw like Sushi by Neneh Cherry:

I'm surprised that the 1000 Albums blurb didn't mention anything about "new jack swing" as a genre on this album, but, ya know, maybe this is just me being reductive. A late-'80s hard/plastic drum production with a strong Black female artist doing a hybrid of hip hop and R&B and dance and pop. My mind goes to new jack swing, but I'm probably wrong. I'm probably just projecting Janet Jackson onto Neneh Cherry (Rhythm Nation would come out two months after this album), which isn't fair, and maybe even a little racist. I'll stand by the idea that the production here sounds a lot like Bobby Brown's, but what the fuck do I know about genre? Nothing.

I probably know more about music genres than I know about being a mother, so it could be that some of the themes of Raw like Sushi went over my head, and that a first reaction of "this must be new jack swing" is me trying to fill the void left in the wake of my unfortunate masculinity. It could also be a defense mechanism against claims that this album "isn't for me." Like, of course I appreciate a feminist album. Of course I appreciate strong mothers. Sometimes I don't need to directly relate to the experiences on an album to like that album. I have never been pregnant, but I can empathize with the powerful emotional experience that pregnancy entails, and I can enjoy music about the power that pregnancy gives you simply because that music sounds good.

I often find myself focusing too much on the "importance" of a song or album or artist. That's what gives this blog life, to be honest. A PoYB that simply gives thumbs-up and thumbs-down would be helpful but boring. You wanna know the Why, right? But the beauty of the symbiosis between What's Important and What Sounds Good is that one can cover for the other if the other is lackluster. There have been plenty of albums in this column for which I've said something like "well, it wasn't great, but I sure loved thinking about it." I like when that happens. Raw like Sushi is more toward the opposite. I don't know if I am too invested in the idea that this is backdoor feminism or whatever, but I sure do like the sound of it.

I just like hearing music like "Outré Risqué Locomotive" because it's cool to groove along to a catchy song. I like hearing "Manchild" because it's got the hooks. And yeah, I'm a manchild sometimes, and so? I'm not allowed to like a song about it? Those synths all over "Buffalo Stance" are killer, man. What a fun album. I know it's not new jack swing, but I'll probably end up saying this is my favorite new jack swing album anyway. Maybe because it takes those stylings and fleshes 'em out.

I don't know, man, I'm just bullshitting here. It's a Saturday morning on the blog, no one is reading this, just let me listen to Raw like Sushi in peace.