HELL IS ROUND THE CORNER - TRICKY
The interesting thing to me about Adrian Thaws, AKA Tricky, is that he's from a once white, solidly-working class area of Bristol called Knowle West. Such a thing is of little consideration to most of Tricky's audience, of course, who view him as simply being from Bristol but I believe geography is important when it comes to art of any kind, and that the devil is always in the detail.
Knowle West is very much like any other working class council estate and is very much like the one that I grew up on, called Southmead, but on the other side of Bristol. Interestingly, Tricky describes Knowle West in his autobiography Hell Is Round The Corner as a 'white ghetto' which is a term that isn't often used to describe a council estate such as Knowle West. What is also interesting is that Tricky isn't describing it in this way for effect or for credibility but that he's being quite genuine in his choice of words.
When I think of the word 'ghetto' I immediately think of slums the like of which was once found in places like New York or Detroit. More locally, if anywhere in Bristol might be classed as 'ghetto' it would be St Paul's where the vast number of people of colour would always gravitate to live. Over time, the word 'ghetto' has become associated with coolness and street-wise edge but also danger. St Paul's was once in a lot of people's eyes a 'black ghetto' so when Tricky says his area of birth - Knowle West - was a 'white ghetto', it's to be noted.
Knowle West has always been deprived and populated by a lot of low-income families and has always been viewed as a 'dangerous' area through simply being poor, white and working class. There's never been a 'coolness' about it though, or ever had a 'street-wise edge' about it in the same way St Paul's has. It would seem, then, that there are different shades of 'ghetto'.
In his book, Tricky describes being born into a family of gangsters and on reading about his uncles it's obvious they were engaged in that world, particularly in their dealings when up in Manchester. Back in Bristol, every estate was known to have families who were notorious for being fighters, criminals or both. Where I grew up there were certainly some well-known families whose reputations went before them.
Certain members of these families were in the scheme of things pretty dangerous people who invariably would end up in Horfield prison alongside their like from other areas of the city. And so it goes. Whether or not Tricky's family - the Godfrey's - were at one time the hardest in Bristol is debatable though I concur, it's quite feasible they were. Reputation in such matters is all.
I was aware of who Tricky was from his early association with Wild Bunch and Massive Attack. I knew him by sight though not to talk to. To be honest, I was a little wary of him as he always looked to me as being volatile and of potentially being able to kick-off at the drop of a hat. Knowing that he was from Knowle West added another layer of caution as I knew what kids from my own estate could be like when it came to violence and Tricky fitted the part. From reading Hell Is Round The Corner, however, it seems I was totally mistaken and in actual fact Tricky was a shy kid who liked nothing more than having a good smoke and listening to music. Tricky, in fact, could have been the perfect friend.
I've always liked Massive Attack and so too Portishead and Smith & Mighty but to me, Tricky has always been the most interesting both musically and as a person. The reason for this is because I recognize where he's from and it's a place that has always been written-off, rejected, kept at bay and denounced as having nothing good or of any value coming from it ever.
Tricky is not only a riposte to this so-called rule but a total destroyer of it. The strangeness of Tricky's art, the innovation of his music - the uniqueness of it - is all very natural. Tricky is an autodidact, his only university being that of the street - or rather, to be more precise: the university of the council estate.
You can take the boy out of the council estate but you can't take the council estate out of the boy, and it's this quality that separates Tricky from most others. It's what separated Tricky from the other members of Massive Attack. It's a quality that may not equip you with confidence in the way a private school education will but it enables you to be upfront and very truthful in your opinions. A quality that does away with etiquette and middle class mores and enables you to walk straight up and cut to the chase. In Hell Is Round The Corner, it's this same quality - this aspect of the book - that makes it a good one.
For example, there's almost an orthodoxy when it comes to the mythology of the Dug Out club in Bristol and its importance to Bristol's musical culture, elevating it to the level of the Cavern in Liverpool, the 100 Club in London, and CBGBs in New York. I used to go now and again to the Dug Out myself and I was never impressed; its main attraction being that it was a late night place to go that would let you in without having to sport a stupid moustache, sensible shoes and a tie. I've always contended that there were other places in Bristol that were better and culturally just as significant: The Old England pub, the Moon Club, the Star & Garter, The Granary and the Locarno, even.
Tricky, it seems, is in agreement: 'The Dug Out has gone down in history as this legendary place where the so-called Bristol scene started, but I never saw that. For us, it was just a hangout place. It was a really grimy place - not ghetto grimy, because it wasn't ghetto people in there. Just a grimy basement club.'
And that's how I remember it: Full of students, an ultra- sticky carpet, and a screen on the wall showing Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video.
When it comes to the 'Bristol scene' and 'trip hop' in particular, again Tricky cuts to the quick and is able to see through all the hype.
'Who likes trip hop?' he asks the audience at his big Shepherd's Bush show in London to which the audience cheer and shout 'Yeah!'
'Well, fuck off home then!' Tricky tells them.
Backstage he's got David Bowie, Kylie Minogue, Naomi Campbell and Nicole Kidman all wanting to meet him. Tricky's audience has exploded beyond all expectations and he's captured what Julian Palmer of Island Records describes as 'coffee-table listeners, the middle classes, chin-waggers at dinner parties'. It's an audience that anyone from a working class council estate is going to have a natural antipathy toward because among many other things it's an audience that brings with it suffocation, recuperation, and significantly to Bristol as a city - gentrification.
It's not Tricky's fault, of course. He never asked for his audience or went chasing them. They came to him. And then they came to Bristol. Obviously, not just on the back of Tricky's music or that of Massive attack's and Portishead's but it was a contributing factor without any doubt. The gentrification of Bristol has been rising ever since.
For all that, Tricky to this day has remained an interesting and innovative figure and much to his credit has never forgotten his roots: 'I've always been proud of coming from Knowle West' he writes 'I always thought it made me who I am. Knowle Westers are individuals, and the place has many fond memories for me.'
Tricky is a Bristolian. He's a son of Bristol who for better or for worse has helped to make Bristol one of the most coolest cities in the UK. More importantly, Tricky is a Knowle Wester. He's a son of Bristol's mighty, working class council estates where very few students and gentrifiers still dare not venture. And like practically everything else that Tricky has ever produced, his book Hell Is Round The Corner is a very good one.
John Serpico
