{"id":3189,"date":"2011-08-09T01:40:30","date_gmt":"2011-08-09T08:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=3189"},"modified":"2011-08-09T01:40:30","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T08:40:30","slug":"tricky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/08\/tricky\/","title":{"rendered":"TRICKY"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

TRICKY<\/h1>\n

Mixing things up with a renewed sense of enthusiasm and commitment<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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 \u201900s to do just that. \u201cIt was a way of catching up with myself,\u201d says Tricky of his self-imposed hiatus, during which he became a self-described fitness nut. \u201cI\u2019m more comfortable now. I realized I\u2019ve got a great job. I\u2019m lucky to be able to do this. So I look at things differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

He returned to recording with renewed creativity, resulting in Knowle West Boy<\/em> in 2008. And now we have Mixed Race<\/em>, a nod to his heritage and the music he absorbed during his upbringing in England. \u201cGrowing up in my household, there was every kind of music,\u201d says Tricky (born Adrian Thaws). \u201cMy uncle, who was white, playing Al Green; his son playing Parliament, T. Rex, Gary Numan and English radio when I was a kid.\u201d He absorbed those influences so completely that he claims he\u2019s typically all but unaware of them when making his own music. On Mixed Race<\/em>, though, he was more conscious of maintaining a vibe. \u201cIt\u2019s a very urban album,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s got stuff about street life. It\u2019s the closest I\u2019ve come to making a gangsta rap album.\u201d Tricky was already making his name working with electronica pioneers Massive Attack in the late \u201980s when gangsta rap began its ascendance, but the impact was immediate. \u201cWhen N.W.A. came out, that changed everything,\u201d Tricky says. \u201cEazy-E wasn\u2019t the greatest rapper, but he had a vibe. It was like he was saying, \u2018You can do this.\u2019 Rakim was one of my favorite rappers, but he was almost too good. He was beyond my level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that Mixed Race<\/em> is a rap album by any means\u2014Tricky 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\u2019s a method that avoids a lot of the bureaucracy of planned collaborations arranged through management firms and labels. \u201cWhen you\u2019re feeling good about something, you\u2019re vibed up, you contact someone and their manager doesn\u2019t get back to you for two weeks, it takes you off your vibe,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n

Although Mixed Race<\/em> only recently hit the street, Tricky is nearly finished with the follow-up already. He\u2019s also considering a new collaboration with Massive Attack, their first since the mid-\u201990s. \u201cI fell in love with music again,\u201d he says, \u201cand now there\u2019s so many things I want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Eric R. Danton<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u201900s to do just that. \u201cIt was a way of catching up with myself,\u201d says Tricky of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[1175,10156,2324],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3189"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3191,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3189\/revisions\/3191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}