Word: singer
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...BOTTOM LINE: A boxed set captures, if not the glory days of a supernal jazz singer, great ones nonetheless...
...minute she is tender, singing with a lilt as soft and sweet as cotton candy. The next she drives her points home by rapping tart, in-your-face rhymes as pungent as picante salsa. Afro-British singer-songwriter Neneh Cherry, 27, exhibited this sweet yet fiery (and fervently feminist) demeanor on her memorable 1989 debut album, Raw Like Sushi. The alluring dichotomy continues on her sensational new release, Homebrew. Call it the essence of being Neneh...
...ambiguous title is a hymn of praise for sex education in public schools, is set to a booming, get-up-out-of-your-se at hip-hop drum rhythm, with guitars and harmonica added for good measure. On this track Cherry does a snappy duet with R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe, who manages not to embarrass himself while rapping...
...hummingbird scales and trills fly by. The song continues and bursts into fantastic runs up and down the octaves. Wait a minute, you say, as it becomes clear that this is not just another exercise in bloodless bel canto. The voice you are hearing is fresh and juicy. This singer can make the trills tease, the roulades flirt. She tosses off cruelly difficult music as naturally as if she were chatting on the car phone...
...there were no years on the slow track, working in small European houses. Instead she was launched by TV, on a show called Fantastico. Managers began calling, and she made her operatic debut in The Barber of Seville in Rome. It was an unusual instance where the singer was the same age as the insouciant heroine. "When I sang Rosina at 20," she says, "I knew I felt like Rosina." In 1987 she appeared on French TV in a tribute to Maria Callas, reeling off the finale of La Cenerentola, roughly the vocal equivalent of a Grucci fireworks extravaganza...