Editing Neneh Cherry (section)

==Musical style and influence==

Cherry has never fitted neatly into a single category. Her career has encompassed [[post-punk]], [[hip hop]], [[R&B]], [[trip hop]], [[dance-pop]], and [[free jazz]], and she approaches each with the same spirit of improvisation and authenticity. She has described herself not as a rapper but as a ''singer that does a bit of rapping'', and her vocal style reflects this — conversational, rhythmic, emotionally direct, and stylistically hybrid.

Her influence on subsequent female artists who blend rap with singing and challenge genre categories — from [[M.I.A.]] to [[FKA Twigs]] — has been widely noted by critics. Her appearance on ''Top of the Pops'' while heavily pregnant in 1989 is frequently cited as a landmark moment in the cultural visibility of pregnant women in popular performance.