1987–1994: The Wild Bunch, Massive Attack 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 age 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
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. In 1993, he decided to press a few hundred vinyl copies of the song. In 1995, a
white label record got him a contract with
Island Records, and he started to record his first solo album,
Maxinquaye.
1995–2001: Solo breakthrough 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
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 own fast feet." that had previously inspired Tricky when he forged his style. By the time
Pre-Millennium Tension was released in 1996, Tricky was increasingly irritated with the British press, particularly articles written in
The Face magazine.
The Face had been an early champion of
Maxinquaye, but saw Tricky as more a
duo than a
solo project.
The Face published an article claiming that vocalist Martina Topley-Bird had to single-handedly bring up the child that Tricky had fathered. In 2001, Tricky appeared on the
Thirteen Ghosts soundtrack with the song "Excess" which (briefly) features
Alanis Morissette during two of the choruses. In 2002, that song also appeared on the
Queen of the Damned soundtrack.
2002–2011: Mixed Race and other work in
Zagreb, Croatia Tricky's studio album
Knowle West Boy was released in the UK and Ireland in July 2008, and September 2008 in the US. The first single from the album was "Council Estate" and features the artist as the sole vocalist: "It's the first single I've ever done with just me on vocals. I couldn't whisper that song. I had to come out of myself and do a loud, screaming vocal. I wanted to be a proper frontman on that one." In an interview with
The Skinny in July 2008, Tricky mentioned that
Knowle West Boy was the first album for which he decided to enlist a co-producer. Ex-
Suede guitarist
Bernard Butler was Tricky's initial selection, but, less than enamoured with Butler's technical prowess, Tricky finished the album by totally re-recording all of the material. On 8 December 2009, Tricky's 1995 debut album
Maxinquaye was reissued with a bonus 13-track CD featuring
B-sides,
outtakes and seven previously unreleased mixes of songs such as "Overcome", "Hell is Round the Corner" and "
Black Steel". In December 2009, the media reported that Massive Attack met Tricky in Paris and asked him to work on a future project—Daddy G said: "Things seem like they've healed between us and Tricky. It's been quite well documented how us and Tricky get on, hasn't it? It's not that well, but things have changed. Things have softened up. We saw Tricky a couple of weeks ago in Paris and it was quite an amicable meeting after five or six years." Tricky agreed to record with the band and he revealed in a June 2013 interview that "there's a couple of songs which are OK, which are really good actually to be honest with you". However, Tricky also stated in June 2013 that he could not spend more than two or three days with Massive Attack and described band member Daddy G as "very arrogant". Tricky's ninth album
Mixed Race was released on 27 September 2010 and the first single from the album became available on 23 August. The album includes contributions from Franky Riley, Terry Lynn,
Bobby Gillespie, Hamadouche, Blackman and Tricky's youngest brother Marlon Thaws. In June 2011, Tricky's then label Brownpunk signed on Mexican band My Black Heart Machine for one single, "It Beats Like This", which Tricky co-produced. My Black Heart Machine was then commissioned by the label to cover a song from Maxinquaye for an album of covers by Brownpunk's roster; the band chose "Hell Is Round the Corner". "It Beats Like This" was released independently by the band on their first EP in April 2013. Tricky produced rapper Omni's album
IamOmni (produced by Tricky) (released under the moniker
IamOmni) that was available from 30 August 2011 as a free download on Omni's official site.
2011–present: False Idols, live events, Ununiform On 26 June 2011, Tricky appeared on stage during American singer
Beyoncé's historic
2011 Glastonbury Festival Performance on the pyramid stage for the track "
Baby Boy". Partly the result of technical difficulties with his microphone, he later stated he was "mortified" by his own performance, saying, "I've never been so embarrassed. My body just froze". In April 2012, Tricky performed
Maxinquaye with Martina Topley-Bird at several concerts around the UK including, for the first time in several years in his home town of Bristol. The concerts featured regular interruptions orchestrated by Tricky, where he brought his youngest brother, Marlon Thaws to rap on stage alongside other local rappers as well as encouraging the audience to come up on stage. The review of the concert in Manchester said it was "shambolic" and a "car crash" with Tricky often leaving the stage and continuously forgetting his words, leaving Topley Bird to carry the delivery of the tracks, resulting in many leaving early after repeated issues with Tricky's behaviour and shouts of "wanker" from the crowd. In February 2013, Tricky announced the release of a new album,
False Idols. The album is the follow-up from his 2010
Mixed Race and featured
Peter Silberman,
Fifi Rong and
Nneka. Tricky released this statement about the album: ::"This new album I'll stand behind every track. I don't care whether people like it. I'm doing what I want to do, which is what I did with my first record. That's what made me who I was in the beginning. If people don't like it, it don't matter to me because I'm back where I was." In spring 2014, it was announced that Tricky is to perform at a number of festivals throughout Europe over the summer of 2014, including Control Day Out in Romania, festival
Couleur Café in Belgium, Positivus Festival in Latvia and
Galtres Parklands Festival in England, the latter of which he co-headlines with contemporaries
Morcheeba. Tricky announced a new album titled
Adrian Thaws in June 2014. It was released on 8 September 2014.
Skilled Mechanics was released in January 2016. The same month was released a song Tricky had written with 3D from Massive Attack, on the band's EP Ritual Spirit. His thirteenth official studio album,
ununiform, was released on 22 September 2017, and featured collaborations with
Asia Argento, Avalon Lurks, and Martina Topley-Bird, as well as a cover of
Hole's "
Doll Parts". Polish singer Marta Złakowska joined Tricky's band on a 2017 tour as a guest singer. She stepped in at the last minute when the originally planned singer dropped out. Blink, an imprint of Bonnier Books UK, has acquired Tricky's autobiography. Commissioning Editor Kerri Sharp acquired World rights from K7 Music – the independent music company headquartered in Berlin, where Tricky His EP
20,20 was released on 6 March 2020. It featured the song
Lonely Dancer recorded with the female singer
Anika. She had previously worked with
Beak in 2010. Tricky's next album,
Fall to Pieces, was released in September 2020. It featured songs with previous album vocalists Marta and Oh Land. In October 2025, Tricky and Polish singer Marta Złakowska released the joint album
Out the Way via False Idols, which
The Observer praised as “the pair’s best work yet, displaying a rewarding rigour that often eludes Tricky.” ==Side projects and film career==