TRICKY

Mixing things up with a renewed sense of enthusiasm and commitment

Fame swept over trip-hop star Tricky so quickly in the mid-1990s that he was barely able to catch his breath. He sat out much of the ’00s to do just that. “It was a way of catching up with myself,” says Tricky of his self-imposed hiatus, during which he became a self-described fitness nut. “I’m more comfortable now. I realized I’ve got a great job. I’m lucky to be able to do this. So I look at things differently.”

He returned to recording with renewed creativity, resulting in Knowle West Boy in 2008. And now we have Mixed Race, a nod to his heritage and the music he absorbed during his upbringing in England. “Growing up in my household, there was every kind of music,” says Tricky (born Adrian Thaws). “My uncle, who was white, playing Al Green; his son playing Parliament, T. Rex, Gary Numan and English radio when I was a kid.” He absorbed those influences so completely that he claims he’s typically all but unaware of them when making his own music. On Mixed Race, though, he was more conscious of maintaining a vibe. “It’s a very urban album,” he says. “It’s got stuff about street life. It’s the closest I’ve come to making a gangsta rap album.” Tricky was already making his name working with electronica pioneers Massive Attack in the late ’80s when gangsta rap began its ascendance, but the impact was immediate. “When N.W.A. came out, that changed everything,” Tricky says. “Eazy-E wasn’t the greatest rapper, but he had a vibe. It was like he was saying, ‘You can do this.’ Rakim was one of my favorite rappers, but he was almost too good. He was beyond my level.”

Not that Mixed Race is a rap album by any means—Tricky also incorporates old-school dub reggae alongside French and North African influences, in part a result of his penchant for inviting interesting musicians he meets by chance into the studio to see what happens. It’s a method that avoids a lot of the bureaucracy of planned collaborations arranged through management firms and labels. “When you’re feeling good about something, you’re vibed up, you contact someone and their manager doesn’t get back to you for two weeks, it takes you off your vibe,” he notes.

Although Mixed Race only recently hit the street, Tricky is nearly finished with the follow-up already. He’s also considering a new collaboration with Massive Attack, their first since the mid-’90s. “I fell in love with music again,” he says, “and now there’s so many things I want to do.”

–Eric R. Danton