Woman

After its July 1996 release, "Woman" became Neneh Cherry's last substantial hit single. The track climbed to number nine on the UK Singles Chart and reached number two in Iceland, with further top-ten placements in Finland, Hungary, and the Wallonia region of Belgium. In her native Sweden it peaked at number 20 and spent ten weeks on the chart, while in France it earned a gold certification for sales beyond 250,000.

Cherry wrote the song with her husband Cameron McVey and Jonathan Sharp for her third album, Man. It was conceived as a response to James Brown's 1966 hit "It's a Man's Man's Man's World", and its lyrics described the difficulties women face in life. Critics picked up on that framing. Dele Fadele of NME wrote that the song rewrote Brown's track as a feminist tract, and Music & Media noted that even the melodies and chord changes echoed the original while carrying a tribute to femininity and its loving, caring power.

The single's success left Cherry with mixed feelings. She said she felt she was pushing her limits with the level of fame she was experiencing, and that although the success was enjoyable, it was not completely what she wanted. The idea behind making "Buffalo Stance" and Raw Like Sushi, she explained, had never been to become famous but to change things and do things their own way, always with a spirit of activism or rebellion.