Digital Cover Story 31: Cherise
"I really try my best to cut out the noise because I'm trying to do something that I don't think anyone has done yet in the UK - to be this Black British soul singer with songs that are rivaling some of the best that we've seen. So I really have to stay in my own lane. And commit to creating something that is unique to me."
Meet Cherise - At only 26 years old, the soul singer from London truly is a force to be reckoned with, and her journey so far has been nothing but impressive. Thanks to her incredible talent, she has won Jazz FM’s Vocalist of the Year Award and was Vocalist of the Year by the Parliamentary Jazz Awards in 2020. When I call the songstress, fashionably late due to bad Wi-Fi issues on my side (which she luckily didn’t mind too much!), we get straight into all things music. Only recently, Cherise has featured on Disney’s Christmas campaign alongside jazz legend Gregory Porter, so if you’ve seen it on your telly or online then you are probably already familiar with her stunning vocals. “It’s been a real blessing to be supported by them and to be working with them. And it’s been a big lesson in press training as well”, Cherise says when I ask her about the experience working with Disney. “Gregory Porter was already going to work with them, and Gregory is signed to Decca Records. And I’m a member of an organization called Tomorrow’s Warriors who have trained me for the past 10 years. It’s a jazz education organization specialized in helping and uplifting black people and women. And I’m both of those. So they helped me to get into the institution that I studied in called Trinity Laban, and have given me career support ever since.”
Speaking of Tomorrow’s Warriors, their alumni include familiar names such as Nubya Garcia and Ezra Collective, and as mentioned by Cherise, have played a crucial part in her artist development over the past years. But when did she even know music was something she wanted to for a living? “I knew from the age of five or four or from like having a conscious mind that I wanted to sing or that I connected to life through singing. And I had a very encouraging grandmother, Jamaican grandmother and part of the Windrush generation who always believed in me, and she was my biggest champion for me up until the beginning of this year where she sadly passed away. And I ever since have taken scene quite seriously, and I loved soul singers like Anita Baker, Sam Kirk, and Toni Braxton and Luther Vandross, like anything that my mom listened to basically, I would love and she was a soul girl”, she says, but realised that she needed to find her way into the Jazz scene first. “I knew I wanted to sing soul, but didn’t see many opportunities for it. And I realized that all the best soul singers had a grounding in jazz first. So when the opportunity came to become a jazz singer, I worked, I worked and worked and worked and worked and worked at that. And now I feel like I have enough of a grounding in jazz in order to pivot and bring it into soul,” Cherise chuckles.
One thing that she keeps emphasising is the endless support from her family who have constantly encouraged her to chase her dreams. A second-generation descendant to Jamaican grandparents who settled in London as a part of the Windrush generation, Cherise draws a lot of inspiration from her culture and heritage. Cherise reflects for a moment. “It’s interesting, because sometimes, being the children of immigrants, your parents want you to do the thing that will give you the most financials, empowerment and social mobility. So for them to believe that singing and music was the right thing for really means a lot”, she admits.
“Community is everything. I wouldn’t have been able to get this EP out if it wasn’t for people going over and above.”
- Cherise
Aside from being in Disney’s Christmas ad, Cherise has also released a brand new EP not too long ago. Titled ‘Remedy’, the 4-track body of work’s title is actually inspired by all those never-ending lockdowns we had to endure in the past two years while living through a global pandemic - something that has been a challenging time for most of us. But also the police brutality and racial injustice that once again occurred when George Floyd was innocently murdered in May last year, an incident that sparked protests all over the world, has impacted Cherise and inspired her lyrics. “The writing process was a remedy for a lot of the collective trauma that was being experienced from the retriggering of racial tensions and traumas in 2020’s summer. George Floyd’s passing and trying to fight for justice for Brionna Taylor. And there were loads of things that were reverberated around the country globally,” she reminisces, and continues to provide a deeper insight into the inspiration behind some of her songs on the EP: “It led me to writing songs like ‘Water’, which is inspired by negro spirituals, but me doing it in my own way trying to bring modernity to a narrative. And then in an experience that is very universally felt by Black individuals. And ‘Rise’, the last song of the EP, I wrote that as a testament to my grandmother, who I lost. And I also lost my granddad at the beginning of the pandemic, both of them to COVID. But she would always say to me, you will rise and still you rise, like out of any grieving out of any doubts. Still, I rise. So each song reflects an emotion that was being processed through lockdown. And I’m very grateful to have had the time and space to be creative during lockdown, because there wasn’t anything else going on.”
If you haven’t yet listened to the project, please make sure you do. Not only are her vocals effortlessly stunning and soulful, but her song-writing is profound, contemporary and also timeless at the same time. “Community is everything. I wouldn’t have been able to get this EP out if it wasn’t for people going over and above. From the people who represent me to the people who believe in me to those who have worked for free. Or, you know, from photographers, to filmmakers, to PR to friends and family. This EP is a reflection of all those in my life, not just me, “ she adds when we speak about what the EP means to her, and one thing that Cherise has learn throughout the whole process is to “stay in your own lane”, which I couldn’t agree more with. “Whether it’s comparison to artists that have done stuff in the past, or doing things now, or comparison to other people on social media, I really try my best to cut out the noise because I’m trying to do something that I don’t think anyone has done yet in the UK - to be this Black British soul singer with songs that are rivaling some of the best that we’ve seen. So I really have to stay in my own lane. And commit to creating something that is unique to me,” she clarifies.
And might I add that Cherise actually taught herself to play the guitar for her EP, a skill that emerged out of a creative block due to not being able to work with a band. “I had to depend on myself, which meant I had to learn how to play the guitar in lockdown. Which was scary,” she laughs. “But I just needed to accompany myself to figure out my songs. And I had to get over my ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’m really bad at this.’ What do they say? Necessity is the mother of invention.” As someone who took guitar lessons for years and still didn’t grasp it, I’m seriously impressed and ask for a friend how she has managed to learn it so quickly. “YouTube. Pickup Jazz is a subscription service with amazing musicians sharing their craft, and I subscribe to that. I also did zoom lessons with one of my favorite guitarists and friends. And then I would play around with everything that I’d learnt to see what I could make,” Cherise unveils, and this leads us to our next conversation topic - her creative process. By interviewing different artists over the past years, I have noticed that each and every one approaches a new song differently, so I’m intrigued to hear how Cherise’s work flow looks like creatively. And it seems like poetry plays a huge part in it. “My process is either journaling or poetry writing, because I really, really, really value lyrics to tell a story, but especially coming from a jazz background where the chord can often be quite harmonically rich. I think my job is as a lyricist, because I want the music to be inclusive and have a wide reach, there has to be something that everyone can understand and empathize with. I just think poetry to music. So I tried to take it from that angle. I did a short course at Goldsmiths and everything. Just to understand Poetry a little bit more.”
In order to celebrate the release of ‘Remedy’, Cherise has also performed a headline show at Ninety One Living room, which actually marked her first show ever since early 2020.
“We had a lot of goals of trying to fill the room, of trying to make the music as good as it could possibly be. And I’m so grateful that we hit both of them and I have my stellar band to thank for a lot of that job. And it was at like 250 people capacity, and we sold out and then some there were some people that were turned away. I’m so sorry to the people that were turned away. That’s also a good feeling to know that gosh, like, I’ve seen to empty rooms before,” she proclaims, and while this is an amazing achievement, the future looks even brighter for the songstress! “I’m releasing a new EP that will be coming very soon and I’ll be performing at SXSW in Texas. And then I have my next gig at the Moth Club on the 11th of April in Hackney.” So stay tuned everyone. Cherise is on her way to take over the scene by storm!
Watch the visuals for her single ‘Remedy’ below…
Stream her EP ‘Remedy‘ HERE
Keep up with Cherise on socials…
Instagram: @cherisemusic
Twitter: @cherisemusic_
Facebook: @cherisemusic