Well, the truth is that we are all mystical and that there is something going on that can't be explained. Outside of the day-to-day stuff like getting up going to work, we all have something going on within us, and we all know that there is something going on - we're spiritual creatures and we are very powerful.
— Tricky
First off, I absolutely hate the term 'trip-hop.' It was a term that made it seemed like I was trying to turn the music into something else. I was always influenced by New York hip-hop, since forever, since I was a kid.
Success has got nothing to do with being happy. I've been very rich, and been unhappy, and I've been very poor, and been happy.
If I'd lived in Bristol, I'd probably be doing building site stuff, plastering. Probably not the plastering. It would have been mixing. I could always get work from friends who did construction. But I wasn't into getting up at seven in the morning.
England is very regimented. Go to work, come home from work, go to the pub.
I'm not going to be pretentious and two-faced to get a good review. But that's the kind of thing which gets you a rep in this business.
If I had made another 'Maxinquaye,' I'd have had ten times as much success. I ain't going down that path, because that way you're totally controlled by people around you. I don't want to be controlled.
I've never been shown how to get rid of my anger. I think I do it through my music.
I grew up around a lot of angry men.
Oh, I still like dresses. I've still got plenty of them. It's just that I don't put them on specially for photo-shoots anymore. It's just part of my everyday life.
My background was Rude Boys, Teddy Boys, rockabillys and skinheads. I was into reggae and Blondie and The Cure, and especially The Specials - these black and white guys getting it together. Extreme personalities. Extreme talent.
Surviving in music is the same as surviving in a place like Knowle West - sometimes you need to be low-key, but sometimes you need to make your presence felt.
People put you into a category and if you don't fight it you're stuck there for the rest of your life.
I have loyal fans, really loyal fans.
I'm not very good with roughing it.
The music I should be doing is music that you haven't heard before - whether you like it or not. I don't want to just repeat.
I think Kylie's underrated... Cool is knowing yourself and I think Kylie Minogue really knows who she is and doesn't try to be anything else.
People used to talk about my lyrical content and not about my music, and to be honest, I think I have got lazy with my lyrics over the years.
I didn't want to be just a Top 20 artist.
School is about who you know, but I think it's a form of brainwashing. I learnt to read and write and that was enough.
My manager told me that a kid who was in a coma woke up after ten days when they played him one of my songs. That now means more to me than winning any award.
Unity makes you stronger - you need that in this business.
I'm straight-up with people.
I'm forced away from what I would call my music. I can't do another thing like 'Maxinquaye.' But if people didn't go out and copy it, I might have done another three or four 'Maxinquayes.' Which is terrible.
A guy threw a stone at my head when I was eight. I told my nan, and she said, 'Get a bigger stone.' That's what I got programmed into me. And sometimes I find it a struggle to get it out of me.
I have my routine. In the evenings I watch 'Seinfeld' and 'Frasier.' That finishes about 11.30 and then I go to bed. I get up at eight o'clock every day, and I'm on the phone straight away, doing business.
I would work with someone humble like that guy Peter Andre than Madonna.
I'm hard work to live with. Someone who wants to be my girlfriend has to be totally devoted because I don't give very much back.
There's a certain type of success you can have where it means nothing. You're just becoming someone in Hello! magazine and no one knows what you actually do any more... the only way to escape that is to go back underground.
I can't just be thinking about what people like.
I never compromised myself musically.
Someone at Hollywood Records said, 'Are you into Alanis Morissette?' I said 'Yeah, she sells 26 million albums, of course. It would be perverse if she works with me, but I don't think you can get her.' A week later they say she's coming down the studio.
I had an uncle who adored Al Green. He was white, but he only listened to black music.
Madonna working with Justin Timberlake is supposed be cool but I don't think there's anything cool about it.
I've always loved rock music. I've always loved stuff like the Specials and the Breeders and things like that. But it was hip-hop that really got me into music.
To be honest with you, it was almost like I could do no wrong after 'Maxinquaye.' And when I was putting together 'Nearly God,' I was thinking, 'Will you stay with me if I put out something that radio cannot play?'
I never considered myself a funny person.
I've had my differences with Massive Attack, but you can't deny what they've done. They've changed the face of music. They should make up an award for them even if there ain't one.
If someone is cool to me, I'll be cool to them.
I was never part of the Bristol scene. My sound was a Knowle West sound. Massive Attack wouldn't come to my area because they know they'd have got beaten up there.
I was quite... feminine. Not in my actions, in my ways. If one of my uncles had trouble at school, they'd go to that person and thump him. It's all a man thing. They got sent off to boxing when they were kids. You live in a tough area, you get off to boxing. My auntie tried to do that to me. I lasted six minutes in boxing.
People can't work out my music, but neither can I. I just put it together. I don't know how it happens.
There are certain things you can talk to a partner about and it's someone to lean on. But I refuse to get into a relationship just for the sake of comfort.
I would rather hang out with a cleaner than a celebrity.
There's bound to be turbulence in any situation if you're with someone for long enough. Especially if you're with someone like me.
Trip-hop? That's never existed and they say I invented it. Trip-hop is just hip-hop with a girl singing on top.
Schizophrenia runs in the family.
I never sold out. I never made an album to buy a house.
I never like something too live or too electronic. I'll take a bit of both.
I grew up in a mixed-race family in Bristol. My cousin was this white guy who was interested in Parliament, Marc Bolan, Bowie. His friends were football thugs and while I was getting ready for bed, they'd be listening to all that music. When I was older, I'd go to a Jamaican sound system and there were no white people.
