Tricky

Adrian Nicholas Matthews Thaws (born 27 January 1968), better known by his stage name Tricky, is a British record producer and rapper.

Born and raised in Bristol, south-west England, he began his career as an early member of the band Massive Attack alongside Robert Del Naja, Grant Marshall & Andrew Vowles.

Tricky was born Adrian Nicholas Matthews Thaws on 27 January 1968 in Knowle West, Bristol, to a Jamaican father and a mixed-race Anglo-Guyanese mother.

His mother, Maxine Quaye, died either by suicide or due to epilepsy complications when Tricky was four.

His father, Roy Thaws, operated the Studio 17 sound system (formerly known as "Tarzan the High Priest") with his brother Rupert and father Hector.

In the mid-1980s, Tricky met DJ Milo and spent time with a sound system called the Wild Bunch, which by 1987 evolved into Massive Attack.

He received the nickname "Tricky Kid" and at the age of 18 became a member of the Fresh 4, a rap group built from the Wild Bunch.

He also rapped on Massive Attack's acclaimed debut album Blue Lines (1991).

In 1991, before the release of Massive Attack's album Blue Lines, he met Martina Topley-Bird in Bristol.

Some time later she came to his house, and mentioned to Tricky and Mark Stewart that she could sing.

Martina was only 15 years old, but her "honey-coated vox" impressed them and they recorded a song called "Aftermath" (although The Face '95 mentions that the first song they recorded together was called "Shoebox").

Tricky showed "Aftermath" to Massive Attack, but they were not interested.

So in 1993 he decided to press a few hundred vinyl copies of the song.

He cut it directly off the tape, so that the song is basically "just bassline and hiss".

(NME 1994).

He embarked on a solo career with his debut album, Maxinquaye, in 1995.

The release won Tricky popular acclaim and marked the beginning of a lengthy collaborative partnership with vocalist Martina Topley-Bird.

In 1995, a white label got him a contract with Island Records and he started to record his first solo album, Maxinquaye.

Tricky left Massive Attack to release his debut album Maxinquaye, co-produced by himself and Mark Saunders and prominently featuring singer Martina Topley-Bird.

The album was successful and Tricky consequently attained international fame, something he was notably uncomfortable with.

The Maxinquaye album review by Rolling Stone read: "Tricky devoured everything from American hip-hop and soul to reggae and the more melancholic strains of '80s British rock".

Authors David Hesmondhalgh and Caspar Melville wrote in the book Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the USA: "Tricky showed his debt to hip-hop aesthetics by reconstructualising samples and slices of both the most respected black music (Public Enemy) and the tackiest pop (quoting David Cassidy's "How Can I Be Sure?")."

As the Rolling Stone article further explained, Tricky created "a mercurial style of dance music that immediately finds it [sic] own fast feet."

Tricky failed to complete a number of lyrics for the Massive Attack album Protection and gave the band some of the lyrics he had written for Maxinquaye instead.

Thus, there are songs across the two albums that largely share the same lyrics – titled "Overcome" and "Hell is 'Round the Corner" on Maxinquaye and "Karmacoma", and "Eurochild" on Protection, respectively.

Tricky found it difficult to cope with the huge success of Maxinquaye and subsequently eschewed the laid-back soul sound of the first album to create an increasingly edgy and aggressive punk style of music.

He released four more studio albums before the end of the decade, including Pre-Millennium Tension and the pseudonymous Nearly God, both in 1996.

At the age of 15, he began to write lyrics ("I like to rock, I like to dance, I like pretty girls taking down their pants", MixMag, 1996).

At 17, he spent some time in prison after he purchased forged £50 notes from a friend, who later informed the police.

Tricky stated in an interview afterward: "Prison was really good. I'm never going back."

In 1996, Neneh Cherry and Björk appeared as guests on his second album Nearly God.

The opening number was a cover of the Siouxsie and the Banshees pre-trip-hop song "Tattoo" that had previously inspired Tricky when he forged his style.

He has gone on to release nine studio albums since 2000, most recently Fall to Pieces (2020).

Bristol musician Bunny Marrett claimed in 2012, "It became the most popular sound system in Bristol at the time."

Tricky experienced a difficult childhood in Knowle West, an economically deprived area in Southern Bristol.

He became involved in crime at an early age, and joined a gang that was involved in car theft, burglary, fights and promiscuity.

Tricky spent his youth in the care of his grandmother, who often let him watch old horror films instead of going to school.

In 2016, he joined Massive Attack on stage for the first time in two decades while continuing his solo career.

Tricky is a pioneer of trip hop music, and his work is noted for its dark, layered musical style that blends disparate cultural influences and genres, including hip hop, alternative rock and ragga.

He has collaborated with a wide range of artists over the course of his career, including Terry Hall, Björk, Gravediggaz, Alanis Morissette, Grace Jones and PJ Harvey.