The first time I saw Tricky live was at the old Avalon Ballroom in Boston (which has since been torn with the Axis Club as they make way for a massive House of Blues room). The show was memorable for two reasons. The first being that there were absolutely no lights on during the show and second because the man himself performed with his back to the audience for just about the full show. Confusion? Yes. Excellence?Arguable.
The Quietus caught up with Tricky recently to discuss England and Englishness. He compared it properly to the other EU states in the English vicinity. “The French are the French and the Germans are Germans, they have their personalities and they don’t really bend from that. You hang out with French guys and you know you’re hanging out with French guys. We can camoflaugue ourselves a little bit, because the English language is spoken everywhere. We’re not so worried about change so much.”
The whole manifesto is a fascinating read especially if you grew up in the age of the second British wave. Dig in.
I’ll leave you with one more line of excellence,
“Fucking what? Proud to be British? I’m fucking lucky to be British.”
