A Thousand Threads A Memoir

“Neneh is cool, Neneh is wise, Neneh is a legend. Her memoir is a treasure. I loved it.” —Zadie Smith This vibrant memoir from Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Neneh Cherry offers an inside look at her fascinating career and is “a living testament to artistic invention and the people who are driven by it” (The Guardian). Born in Sweden in 1964, Neneh Cherry’s father Ahmadu was a musician from Sierra Leone. Her mother, Moki, was a twenty-one-year-old Swedish textile artist. Her parents split up just after Neneh was born, and not long afterwards Moki met and fell in love with acclaimed jazz musician Don Cherry. Eventually, the strong pull New York City in the 1970s drew him them there, but they made a home wherever they traveled. Neneh and her brother Eagle-Eye experienced a life of creativity, freedom, and, of course, music. In A Thousand Threads, Neneh takes readers from the charming old schoolhouse in the woods of Sweden where she grew up, to the village in Sierra Leone that was birthplace of her biological father, to the early punk scene in London and New York, to finding her identity with her stepfather’s family in Watts, California.