It was 1997 and the time had come to choose a university. I thought I was destined to be a lawyer. In hindsight, I was trying to be someone else’s version of myself (sorry, mum and dad). Bristol had a top-ranking faculty with a decent rugby team – an important consideration at the time. But none of that mattered, particularly after they sniffed at my decent grades and set a benchmark of 10 or more A*s). What really made me turn west was a group called Massive Attack. I was obsessed with these guys – everything from their soulful yet gritty sound system vibe to their relative anonymity and that enigmatic 🔥 logo (which I threatened to get a tattoo of at one point).

The voice I gravitated to was Tricky Kid from Knowle West, hushed but plucky and with an undercurrent of menace. He would nonchalantly drift in front of the mic through a heady plume of smoke, do his thing and then slip away to roam around St Paul’s and south Bristol. Fame and work commitments were the last things on his mind. But he was ambitious, intrepid. It wasn’t long before the kid (real name Adrian Thaws) bust out on his own.

With wisdom beyond his years and looking beyond the 90’s hip-hop boom, he realised that his shelf and autonomy would be limited unless he learned to produce himself. His debut album, Maxinquaye, remains a stunning piece of work and a highlight of the decade. Amorphous, agitated. enveloping, unpredictable and ingenious. The artist now known simply as Tricky, drew on anyone from AR Rahman to LL Cool J and pop outfit Shakespeare’s Sister. It wasn’t long before he was being nominated for a Mercury Prize, courted by the likes of The Face and the NME and praised by David Bowie who even wrote a surreal story for Q Magazine about them both getting stoned and flying over Bristol on balloons.

Since then he has steadfastly pursued his own path, releasing a steady stream of albums and rarely looking back. An uncompromising artist – my favourite – pouring all the pain, confusion, anxiety and introspection into his music. Along the way, there has been a lot of personal trauma and the two most devastating incidents bookend his autobiography Hell Is Round The Corner: his mother Maxine committing suicide when he was just four, and daughter Mazy passing aged just 22.

Between them, we hear about the importance of family (Tricky was raised by his grandmother Maga and auntie Maureen, and mentored by gangster uncles). He regales us with vivid depictions of life in the proverbial 70’s/80’s melting pot of Bristol, surrounded by punks, reggae kids, rockers and whoever else, which gave him licence to be all of them or none, even as a mixed race kid in a predominantly white neighbourhood.

There are many tales of excess in the bloated music business, at the height of which he was able to drop £200,000 in car services to ferry him from his isolated country house in New Jersey to downtown Manhattan. How he harnessed his sense of self-discipline through the pursuit of boxing and martial arts including panatukan, while making diet and other lifestyle changes to combat crippling conditions such as candida.

Tricky also talks about the pressure of being a young father (to Mazy) on the road and his turbulent relationship with brilliant collaborator Martina Topley-Bird, as well as influential relationships with the likes of #bjork and formative experiences on tour with PJ Harvey among others. He’s also had his time in the Hollywood limelight, featuring in Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element, contributing to film soundtracks and blanking Madonna who wanted him to produce her album in the 90s.

You would expect him to be more at ease in the public eye after such a lengthy and high-profile career but that’s what makes him so fascinating – his struggles to reconcile the external with the internal. Although outspoken and opinionated, he’s actually very private and quite shy. Some of my favourite passages in the book are where he talks about relationships, friendships with kindred spirits such as Terry Hall and Shaun Ryder and what brings him peace and a sense of contentment.

Prison was “where deep down you knew you were going to end up,” he recalls of Knowle West. It could have all been much bleaker for Tricky, but to his credit and in true hip-hip style, he used what he had to reconceptualise and realise a different path – one where he could be true to himself. Hell Is Round The Corner is highly recommended for any fans of honest, unapologetic tales and bumpy rides, whether you’re into the music or not. Credit also to Andrew Perry for ghostwriting and pulling it all together.

Here is a playlist of my favourite Tricky tracks and appearances through the years.

PS Big thanks to Moon Palace for compiling this brilliant archive of interviews.