Maxinquaye

Maxinquaye came out on 20 February 1995, Tricky’s debut, on 4th & Broadway. He named it for his mother, Maxine Quaye. Martina Topley-Bird, a teenager he had met in Bristol, sings most of it. Mark Saunders co-produced. Tricky had been inside Massive Attack on Blue Lines, a voice among other voices. This album is what he did when he took the temperature of that music and made it personal, slower, and stranger. Aftermath opens on a Marvin Gaye sample. Black Steel is a Public Enemy cover sung, not rapped, by Topley-Bird. Hell Is Round the Corner leans on an Isaac Hayes figure that Portishead were also in the air with. Overcome is the one that feels like a single until you notice how unwilling it is to resolve.

Britain put the album at number 3. It was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. Those are the public scores. The private score is the vocal arrangement: Topley-Bird’s cool tone against Tricky’s mutter, often in the same song, so the record never belongs to one singer. He has talked about his mother’s death in interviews that are part of the album’s public story. The title does that work whether or not you have read them. A debut named for a parent is a different object from a debut named for a mood.

Trip-hop, the word that got stapled to Bristol afterwards, flattens this. Maxinquaye is a hip-hop record sung by someone who was not trying to sound American, produced by someone who had just left a group, with samples chosen for dread rather than for swing. Play Black Steel back to back with the Public Enemy original if you want the argument in one sitting. He kept the title. He handed the lead vocal to her. The album went to number 3 because the songs were undeniable, and it has stayed because the dread was specific.

Sources

• Maxinquaye: 4th & Broadway, 20 February 1995, Martina Topley-Bird, the title, the UK chart peak and the Mercury shortlist.