That Awkward Stage: Tricky

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AWHILE AGO, A GUY approached Tricky, the wiry English rhythm visionary, in Canada. He said his parents used to play Tricky's music for him when, earlier, he was in a coma. The comment left Tricky, rarely at a loss for words, speechless.

Later, in Philadelphia, a nurse in a children's burns unit told him his music was used in that hospital setting. He found this information equally revelatory.

"Kids who had been, like, 60, 70 percent burned," Tricky marvels. "And then I began receiving all these beautiful messages on my MySpace page, things like, 'You've changed my life,' stuff like that. So now, this is the first album I've made for the listeners. I never used to care. I was quite a selfish artist."

"Knowle West Boy" is named for the section of Bristol in which Tricky, born Adrian Thaws in 1968, grew up in what he titles one of the collection's songs a "Council Estate."

It's new music from a new Tricky.

"In the past," he says, "I always wanted to be undercover, because I came from that hip-hop world."

He's referring to how he began as a player in the deft, shadowy late-'80s English scene that spawned Massive Attack, on whose first two albums Tricky rapped before emerging in 1995 with his classic "Maxinquaye" debut.

"It was cool to not get seen so much. It was cool if you were kind of underground. Now, I think it's a little bit different."

The 13 songs on "Knowle West Boy" thrive on the cross-genre juxtapositions of rhythm and punk, pop and rap that left a mighty standard for all pop artists after him who mix up dramatic things arrestingly with suavity and dirt. The music of M.I.A., for example, is tough to imagine without his.

When Tricky first showed up, his work was so unusual that many listeners felt a swift need to categorize it, and the tag "trip-hop" became that attempt. The corny word, though, always seemed at odds with stylistic combinations so boldly authoritative. Still, "the genius thing," as Tricky puts it, is not something he subscribes to.

"I think music comes through you," he says. "It's like meditation. When you're in the studio or onstage, you're not thirsty, you're not hungry, you're asexual, you don't need anything. It's the perfect meditation. I just love being in the studio."

Although he co-produced two tracks with Switch, Tricky recorded most of "Knowle West Boy" at home himself, first in London, then in Los Angeles, where he now lives. He alternated among recording, listening back, meditating, cooking and watching TV; while putting these songs together, he says he watched "Scarface" repeatedly. Tricky judges the 1983 Al Pacino movie, long claimed by hip-hoppers, independently.

"It's about the threat of violence, the disaster of the character," he says, citing the film's handful of scenes depicting literal blood. "It's not just a gangster move. It's a much more poignant film."

Tricky — who says he loves "some" pop music — was keen to fuse with more immediacy now. He mentions Siouxsie and the Banshees, whose work he has always loved.

"They made their own pop music, their own pop-punk music," he says. "Here, it's still my music, and there's definitely nothing else out there like it. But it's accessible. It's Tricky pop music."

He thinks it's a good time in music to be flagrantly oneself.

"Everything sounds the same at the moment," he says, cheerfully enough."So, if you do you — if you do yourself — you'll stand out like a sore thumb. Any individual will stand out. People like Justin Timberlake are so clean, and so perfect, so I think that it would be great to have a star like me — someone who's awkward, uncomfortable sometimes, who is shy and doesn't always look good. I'd like to be a pop star, just for that.

"But more than even that, he says, for his international crew of Tricky fans, whom he calls "like-minded listeners."

The rest of his career, Tricky says, is dedicated to them.

"I still want to be unique," he says. "But it's a lot easier now, because I'm doing it with love. Before, it was anger."

» 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW; with Telepathique, Sat., 11 p.m., $25; 800-955-5566, 930.com. (U St.-Cardozo)

Written by Express contributor James Hunter
Photos by Timothy Saccenti

» In our Sound Bets blog, you can watch the video and read our commentary about "Council Estate," then download a remix of the tune.