Tricky, the Bristol-born rapper, producer, and malcontent, is credited with bringing the trip-hop genre to fame with his 1995 debut release, "Maxinquaye" (although the artist himself has rejected the label trip-hop as a musical category). Listeners first heard Tricky's vocals on...
[more]Tricky, the Bristol-born rapper, producer, and malcontent, is credited with bringing the trip-hop genre to fame with his 1995 debut release, "Maxinquaye" (although the artist himself has rejected the label trip-hop as a musical category). Listeners first heard Tricky's vocals on tracks he wrote for Massive Attack's "Blue Lines," which was released in 1991. Soon after, he met the young singer Martina, who would add her haunting vocals and artistic input to most of his works to follow. With Martina, Tricky left Massive Attack to pursue his own style of jazzy hip-hop, and quickly delivered "Maxinquaye," which received critical and popular praise and entered the U.K. charts at number two. The album is named after Tricky's mother Maxine Quaye, who committed suicide when he was four-year-old Adrian Thaws.
Tricky's music is inclusive -- he's worked with hardcore rap acts such as the Gravediggaz, Cypress Hill, DMX, as well as with the Specials, Bjork, and Luscious Jackson. He has also produced and remixed tracks for Bush, Elvis Costello, Wu-Tang Clan, and Porno for Pyros. Despite rumors, however, he has never been associated with the singer Finley Quaye, who received popular attention after he claimed to be Tricky's uncle. While Tricky's subsequent releases -- "Pre-Millennium Tension," "Angels with Dirty Faces," and "Juxtapose" -- have met with mixed reviews, his work continues to intrigue a wide audience.
[show less]
