For a few years, Tricky tried American country life near New York. In vain. The street is in him. His trips to the Bronx to see his Jamaican cousins became more and more frequent. After a stay in Los Angeles, the East Coast idyll was over. He stayed there and still lives there today, breathing ghetto flavour and hanging out with Chicanos on street corners. Tricky’s story says a great deal about him: father unknown, mother takes her own life when he is still a small boy, many of his relatives are in prison. Adrian sees his own past in Bristol as a walk in the park compared with what awaits England’s youth today. Perhaps Tricky turns necessity into virtue when he identifies with the white ghetto of Knowle West in the south-east of the English port city. In any case, Tricky is proud of where he comes from. Above all because you are not supposed to get out of there – certainly not all the way to Los Angeles.

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Your new album Knowle West Boy is once again melancholic and unsettling. A typical Tricky album, really…
Tricky: Nice that you noticed. So far the press has been saying this is my »happy« album, my pop album, a commercial attempt. An outrage! I don’t make happy pop albums. There is always a certain darkness in my music. Because of my childhood, my past, my life in general, I simply can’t do otherwise. I saw my mother in a coffin when I was four years old. My uncle was killed, others killed themselves. I was always surrounded by violence. Where I come from, everything felt very bleak, and that is always part of my music. I cannot understand why no one hears it.

Is it even possible to overcome a past like that? Do you feel more connected to your roots again today?
It wasn’t hard to live that life. When you are living it yourself, you don’t really notice it at first. A lot of shit happened to me, but I also had just as much luck. Seen that way, I have had a great life, more than I could have expected.
Anyone young today has it much harder. Life has become too crazy. If I were a young man today, I wouldn’t make it: too much gun culture. Just yesterday I had an intense impression of that on my 30-minute walk. Kids with guns, on bikes, with pit bulls – you can feel the tension in the air. When I was growing up, at least there was still respect for age. Children are supposed to have fun and not carry so much responsibility. The album title Knowle West Boy does not refer to my past. I am simply proud of it, because you are not really supposed to get out of the ghetto or become anything. When I look around the music industry, I see very few people with a similar background. There used to be more of us, at least that’s how it seems to me. I’m glad I didn’t go to some famous university and become an upper-class boy. Then I’d probably be spreading meaningless rubbish like Coldplay now.

Why is Bernard Butler, the former guitarist of Suede, credited on the album?
He is an idiot, a yuppie kid. He is also a great guitarist, and I was supposed to write songs with him. My label had set something up. So I went to his studio to meet him, and afterwards I knew: he is an arsehole. I didn’t like what we had produced either. So I did everything again. He still wanted the credits and sued us. We eventually gave in, because the album was supposed to have come out six months earlier. We were tired of fighting, which is why his name is mentioned, even though he is not on the record.

»There is always a certain darkness in my music. Because of my childhood, my past, my life in general, I simply can’t do otherwise

Tricky

And what about Switch: did he contribute anything to the album?
He is a good guy and a good mixer. But he is not a co-producer just because he also produces. He did sound-effect things for me. I like his mixing, not his production. This is a typical Tricky production, not a typical Switch production.

Is that your family on the back of the artwork?
Yes! The one with the cigar is my grandmother’s father; the seated one turning his head towards the woman is my uncle Martin, he is looking at my aunt Olive. Both are still alive. The other one standing there is Uncle Arthur. On the far left is Martin’s wife, she is dead. They are known criminals. One of them is also on Product Of The Environment, a record with gangster interviews that I made in 1999.

Is your grandmother happy about your success? Do you see her often?
My grandmother is not that interested in what I do, because she had a damn hard life: one brother lost to prison for 30 years, another for 15, one son murdered, one daughter dead…

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A great deal suggests that it was Tricky’s conscious decision not to use either his effect on women or the advantages of his career to rise into a higher or healthier social class. Knowle West is tattooed onto his heart, lodged in his bones. Adrian remains who he is: the boy from the gangster family. Tricky speaks the language of the street, but in an enchanted way. When Tricky makes music, Adrian falls silent and someone else speaks. Where do these lyrics come from? Is this the rough Knowle West Boy speaking? Tricky repeatedly stresses that his lyrics are written from a female perspective, which is why he needs female singers. He has broken the hearts of some singers, because there was nothing to be found there; a well without water. For various reasons, his daughter is a taboo subject. In his music, he moves beyond the mental and emotional limits of the estates. This atmospheric sound, which to his horror was called trip-hop, is so sensitive that one would not suspect the ghetto here. But if you listen closely, on any album, you can also hear the enchanted echo of Knowle West. Painted in the sweetest and darkest colours.

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You admire Kate Bush and PJ Harvey. You have always worked with female singers. On this album too. Why?
Because I write from the female perspective. If you listen to the songs and the lyrics, you notice that. These are not the words of a man. That is why I need women to sing them and make that clear. Unfortunately, I can’t sing. I love working with different female singers. Several women sing on this record too, such as my French-Moroccan ex-girlfriend Lubna or Alex Mills from England.

What is »Cross to Bear« about?
The song is about the last temptation of Christ, but from his own perspective, so from a different angle. He is madly in love with this woman and wants to have children with her. He doesn’t want to die on the cross. But his father demands it of him. He wants to run away with her and asks whether she would go with him.

Do you like being »far away«?
Yes, I like numbing myself, because life is so depressing. I try to disappear and pretend everything is all right. That is why there is the song »Far Away«.

»Past Mistake« is frightening. You mentioned that the singer is an ex-girlfriend of yours… What has been your healthiest relationship so far?
A good, healthy relationship is already one without me. That is a fact. When I meet women, I often ask myself whether they can feel and understand that I never had a mother. Still, they like me, fall in love with me, but after a few months their feelings have developed more than mine. They look for me, call me…
Then I call back less and less, and at some point you don’t hear anything from me any more. Then I am gone and vanished. That is why I have hurt many women. Being a musician who travels a lot does not make the whole thing easier, quite the opposite. If there could be a perfect relationship for me, it would only be in the past, when I was still pure. Before you know what lying and cheating mean and acquire bad habits. When you are not yet completely compromised. At 13, perhaps.

»A good, healthy relationship is already one without me.«

Tricky

Do you tell the girls where they stand, or do you take advantage of the situation?
At first I still think it won’t happen again, because no one can fall in love with me. My personality simply doesn’t invite it. I live in my own little world, and sometimes I don’t even notice when my girlfriend is in the room. I am somewhere else.

But doesn’t that contradict your lyrics written from the female perspective?
The two things have nothing to do with each other. Writing lyrics and giving someone attention are two different worlds. I have no idea about these things. I am just a channel through which it flows. I probably have that from my mother. On my first single, »Aftermath«, from 1991, I say the words: »Your eyes resemble mine / you see as no others can«. Who am I talking about there? I didn’t have children yet… That is my mother speaking.

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Tricky’s voice seems like a mirror of his soul. His experiences and memories are embedded in that timbre. With the label Brown Punk, which he revived last year with Island founder Chris Blackwell, he is trying to give boys from the street a chance. On a farm in France, he soon wants to teach young people from Europe how to make music. For Knowle West Boy, he wanted to write lyrics that would also mean something in the ghetto, that would take up references and problems. At the same time, he wanted to fulfil dreams of his own by writing one song as if it were meant as a duet with Tom Waits. Another, by contrast, sounds like his favourite band The Specials. And only a little later, he slips into the role of a hardcore rapper. To discover all this, the listener has to invest a great deal of attention in the ambiguous lyrics. Tricky’s lyricism differs considerably from Adrian’s everyday speech. While Adrian does not always have to be sincere, Tricky cannot help but reflect truth in a subtle way.

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Ten years ago, you spent some time in New Orleans. What did you think after Hurricane Katrina swept through the city in 2005?
I felt transported back to the 18th century. How can something like that still happen today? Juvenile made a great track and video about it. What else are they supposed to do except sell drugs? The ghetto kids will understand that. For some people, America has nothing more to offer. It is not only about race, but also about class. Since I came to America, I know what racism means. As long as it only affects the poor, it is not a problem, because they do not count. It is the same everywhere: if you have nothing, you are fucked.

What can be done?
One could do something for the children. All the money that is put into war and drugs somehow has to go back into the districts and benefit culture and youth support. We need schools and – this is the most important thing – education. Children need opportunities to be creative, and as early as possible. The money made from security forces, prisons or the low-wage sector – someone is earning that too. There is a strong interest in the continuation of poverty. That would have to change.

What is your relationship with your daughter like?
That is none of your business. I don’t talk about her. Why do you want to know?

»School Gates« is about a 15-year-old girl who is pregnant. Why is that subject important to you?
I don’t think children should be having children. It is about all these nameless girls in that kind of situation, in which the children then grow up. That is why I always stress education. Sex education, but above all education about life itself, is necessary. If you become a mother at 16, your chances of getting a good job are not exactly high. You are more likely not to get one. In doing so, you recycle your parents’ lifestyle and programme that of your children in advance.

Did you want to become a father yourself?
I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it yet. But unfortunately I have to stop now.