How the Knowle west was won

If Brian Cowen wants help winning the inevitable re-run of the Lisbon Treaty referendum, he should take Adrian Thaws on the campaign trail with him.

“I’m really loving being a European at the moment,” enthuses the artist also known as Tricky. “I spent 10 or 11 years living in America and thought, ‘That’s where it’s fucking at’, but getting on a train in London and arriving two hours later in Paris is really cool, man. They’ve got the same multicultural vibe there as England, except that the kids are from places like Algeria and Senegal. I’m really into the idea of exploring the musical hybrids they’ve got in France.”
So the next Tricky album could be awash with rai and griot influences?
“If I can find the right people to work with, yeah, it’s entirely possible.”
While very much singing from Brian Cowen’s hymn sheet – “I hate these Little Englanders like – what’s their name? – fucking UKIP. It’s not the 1930s anymore!” – Tricky is decidedly off-message when it comes to Gordon Brown & Co.’s attempts to rid Britain’s streets of knives.
“I’m not saying knife crime’s right or anything stupid like that, but if I was a kid in England I’d definitely carry a weapon ‘cause it’s so fucking hardcore out there,” he states matter of factly. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re in a gang or not, if you’re living on an estate you’re a target. I’d be listening to the news and thinking, ‘I don’t wanna get stabbed, so the best thing is for me to carry a knife.’ Half the kids are into violence and are fuelling the fire, and the other half are just defending themselves.
“Did you hear about the guy who was stabbed here the other day on the bus?” he asks, brow furrowing. “If you’re sat there with your girlfriend and somebody’s throwing chips at her, what are you going to do? You’re going to say, ‘Sorry mate, leave it out’, which is what resulted in this geezer getting knifed to death. People thought I was fucking mad living in South Central LA, but it wasn’t half as gratuitously violent as London is.”
How much influence does gangsta rap culture have on that kind of misplaced machismo?
“Some artists glamourise violence which isn’t a good thing, but it’s the British government rather than hip hop that’s to blame for parts of cities being no-go areas,” Tricky insists. “You’ve got to get these kids young. When I was growing up there was a youth club which was shit, but it was somewhere for us to hang out other than on street corners where, likely or not, you’re going to get up to mischief. I had this amazing English teacher who also taught us football and had us playing at the weekends when we’d otherwise have been on the rob or something. If Gordon Brown was paying geezers like him overtime to do stuff out of class, maybe you wouldn’t get gangs of kids standing around outside the chipper. I was in Manchester recently and there were 25 there, 15 there – it’s trouble waiting to happen.”
Tricky’s own, not always totally law-abiding upbringing is documented on Knowle West Boy, his first album since 2003’s Vulnerable and the record that comes closest to replicating the edgy-bordering-on-paranoid genius of his 1995 solo debut, Maxinquaye.
“Knowle West is where I was born,” he explains. “It’s a white ghetto. I didn’t know what racism was until I left. My family’s mixed race, so we don’t see colour. I grew up on a council estate more as a white kid, but with Jamaican roots. But all of us there had something in common… we were poor.”
Despite having the likes of Bjork, Polly Harvey, Nelly Furtado, Anthony Kiedis, Massive Attack and Sly & Robbie in his phone-book, Knowle West Boy finds Tricky forsaking superstar collaborations in favour of working with nascent talent.
“I like ‘em lean and hungry,” the 40-year-old laughs. “‘Joseph’ is one of two songs I’ve named after the tune’s lead singer. I met him outside a place called Real Food Daily in LA. He was a busker who worked in an ice cream parlour to pay the rent. Problem is I’ve lost his details. I have no idea where this kid is now. Hopefully, he hears it somewhere and gets in touch ‘cause I want to work with him again.
“Then there’s an Italian girl, Veronica, whose mate I used to go out with. I needed a female voice to go on a track one day, so I called her up and she turned out to be fucking amazing.
“Lubna, who’s French-Moroccan and sings on ‘School Gates’ and ‘Past Mistake’, is another ex-girlfriend of mine. ‘Past Mistake’ is about a relationship disintegrating without you realising, which was prophetic ‘cause six months later we were done. It’d gone from romantic love to the kind of love you feel for your friends and your family. We’ve just started talking again – she wrote me an email saying, ‘Miss you’, but I wouldn’t write that back in case she thought I want to give it another go, which ain’t going to happen.
“Anyway,” he resumes, “I wrote our break up song beforehand not realising! It’s a bit like my Blowback album. I remember walking into Hollywood Records and people being really weird with me ‘cause it was 9/11, and there was stuff on there totally forecasting it.”
Knowle West Boy’s most celestial female voice though belongs to Alex Mills, a 23-year-old from Leeds who’s signed to Tricky’s own Brown Punk label.
“She sings on ‘Puppy Toy’ and does the spoken word bits including the sexiest ‘Piss off!’ you’ve ever heard. No offence to Duffy or Adele or any of them people, but it really ought to be her at the top of the charts.”
‘Puppy Dog’ pays gravel-throated homage to a certain Thomas Alan Waits who’s keen to repay the compliment.
“He’s invited me to his studio in San Francisco where we’re just going to sit down together, and record,” Tricky beams. “We’ve nothing specific in mind other than to vibe off each other. Ever since I brought my first album out, I’ve had people in the press reckoning, ‘He must be a Tom Waits fan’, which to be honest with you I wasn’t at first. Anyway, (music industry legend) Chris Blackwell told me that he’s actually a fan of mine, so I checked out some of his stuff and realised that he’s a genius. He totally occupies his own space, which is what I aspire to myself.”
Nothing if not diverse in his tastes, Tricky also pays tribute on Knowle West Boy to Kylie with a cover of ‘Slow’. Has he found out if she likes it or not yet?
“No, and I’m dying to,” he says like a kid on Christmas Eve waiting for Santa. “Kylie would have to have cleared it ‘cause I changed the lyrics, so that’s a good sign. I know Nick Cave got there before me, but I’d love, love, love to do a song with her!”

Knowle West Boy is out now on Domino. Tricky plays the Pet Sounds stage at Oxegen on Friday and will also be popping in to the Hot Press Signing Tent. For more Oxegen coverage see page 46.