Australian Beat Magazine June 23, 2004 Christie Eliezer learns that the very sane Neneh Cherry is now a grandmother but she''s still got that soul! Neneh Cherry is holed up in the country house in Sweden where she and stepbrother Eagle Eye Cherry grew up in, madly writing songs for her fourth album. She's working with beats again, and with a tougher sound. A bit wary about returning to live performances after a six-year break, she decided the best thing to do was ease into it through her DJ sets.  "We're doing some live stuff with the DJ set, some freestyle," she explains. "I've been playing with MCs at some shows and remembering that side of myself. It's getting a nice response, and I'm getting quite inspired." Over the next weeks, Cherry will be DJing for huge crowds at Glastonbury Festival, a rave in Moscow and, go rumours, the opening of the Athens Olympics. "I started DJing many moons ago at the Wag club in London," she remembers. "At the time I had a small baby and no money. I was right into dance music, of course, and I was motivated by the fact there were no female DJs then." Last year she DJed at the Pacha club in Ibiza. She digs its villa style and sexy candlelight, far from the plastic side of clubland. Thirty-five years ago when the Pacha's owner Ricardo Urgell launched it, he called it "great times for gorgeous people". "When you walk in, you definitely feel it's the real deal," Cherry says. "I don't like the big places in Ibiza like Amnesia. The Pacha is the only place in Ibiza where you can hear music outside of techno or house, and the only place which runs in winter. "It used to be an old farmhouse, it's got some spirit. In the 60s, local hippies held happenings there. They'd dress it up with fabrics and do theme nights." Out this month is a three-CD set Pacha Ibiza through Renaissance/Stomp. One disc represents the club's Latin, Afro and disco bent through tracks selected by Kiko Navarro, while recent visitor Wally Lopez sprinkles some twisted tribal house on Disc two. For her disc, Cherry teamed with Pacha's resident DJ Andy B, for a splendid array of hip hop and R&B. They range from Biz Markie, Jazzy Jeff, Roots Manuva and A Tribe Called Quest to the obscure Medaphoar, Pachecos, Jota Mayuscula and a sublime duet by the late soulstress Minnie Ripperton and Rotary Connection. "Minnie was one of my inspirations when I was nine years old, because she and Chaka Khan seemed to be the only women who wrote and produced their own music," Cherry recalls. "That track has always been one of my favourites. There was a certain eeriness to it that I dug." Cherry knows her music. When she called Norah Jones "uninspired" in a newspaper, she knew what she saying. "I'm sure she deserves her success but, really, in overground music, where's the excitement?" After all, she has just finished a radio documentary on the great blues jazz singer Billie Holiday, and held a tribute night for her with Fontella Bass, Amy Whitehouse and Chrissie Hynde, among others. Neneh was the daughter of West African percussionist AmaduJah and Swedish artist Moki Cherry. She grew up with her stepfather Don Cherry, the great jazz trumpeter and global music pioneer, and remembers meeting Miles Davis when she was four. The Cherrys were gypsies and bohemian in their dress. As a kid, Neneh wished her folks were normal. Now she's grateful for the way their lifestyle shaped her own take on life. At 16, she was in a punk band called The Slits. A year later, while working as a cleaner, she was in Rip Rig & Panic, a band that showcased a freeflowing mix of funk, soul and jazz. Neneh shared vocals with Andrea Oliver, with whom she still occasionally DJs. At 18, Neneh fell pregnant to the band's drummer Bruce Smith, and had her first daughter Naima. (Neneh recently became a grandmother after 21-year old Naima recently had a son Louis Clyde Flynn Love). Cherry's debut album from 1989, Raw Like Sushi, an irresistible take on hip hop and blues with songs like Buffalo Stance, Manchild and Kisses On The Wind, sold two million. She married producer Cameron "Boogie Bear" McVey, who produced Massive Attack's Blue Lines. Her follow up, Home Brew, was a more soulful effort with Michael Stipe, Gang Starr's Guru and an unknown lad from Bristol, Geoff Barrows, later to lead Portishead. Her third, Man, was a rushed discourse of life and death, as Don Cherry's life came to an end in the couple's rented home in Spain. Then she took a break, determined to be home for her younger daughters Tyson, 15, and Mabel, 8, in their North London house. She also started writing a cookbook with her best friend. Her last global hit was in 1994, a duet with YoussouN'Dour called Seven Seconds which was No. 1 in France for 17 weeks. She has kept her hand in with music, however, with a collaboration on Groove Armada's Love Box in 2002, a track on Eagle Eye's album, a half hour show on Radio 2 called Neneh Cherry's World Of Music - where she could play anything she wanted. When she turned 40 this year, friends surprised her with a party in a London soul food restaurant. Her mum flew back from New York, and Eagle Eye from Sweden. "I could have taken the fast route to money but I kept my sanity," she says, and it shines through. Renaissance presents Pacha Ibiza (mixed by Neneh Cherry, Andy B, Kiko Navarro & Wally Lopez) is out now through Stomp/EQ. by Christie Eliezer