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Tricky

Tricky came up through Bristol's Massive Attack, rapping on their 1991 debut Blue Lines before striking out on his own. His first solo album, Maxinquaye, named after his mother, arrived in 1995 and set his template: slow, heavy beats, half-whispered rhymes, and Martina Topley-Bird's voice threading through his. It's hip-hop bent into something hazy and uneasy, and it made him one of the defining voices to come out of that Bristol scene.

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Maxinquaye (1995). His debut is still the fullest statement of what he does. "Black Steel" reworks a Public Enemy track into something slow and menacing, while "Hell Is Round the Corner" and "Overcome" show how well his murmur sits against Martina Topley-Bird's singing.

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Biography

Adrian Nicholas Matthews Thaws (born 27 January 1968), better known by his stage name Tricky, is an English musician, record producer, vocalist and rapper. He was born and raised in Bristol, in southwest England. Through his work with Massive Attack and other artists, Tricky became a major figure in the Bristol underground scene, which gave rise to multiple internationally recognized artists and the music genre of trip hop.

Tricky 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. He released four more studio albums before the end of the decade, including Pre-Millennium Tension and the pseudonymous Nearly God, both in 1996. He has gone on to release nine studio albums since 2000, most recently Different When It’s Silent (2026). In 2016, he joined Massive Attack on stage for the first time in two decades while continuing his solo career.

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