Hell Is Round the Corner

by Tricky

  ‘I’m not telling you where I live.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m doing here what I wanna do here. I don’t have to tell you anything. What do you want? You ain’t gonna search me. It’s just because I’m running and I’m black.’

  Another time when I was living in Kensington High Street, I’ve been pulled over and taken out of a car. They made me take my shoes and socks off and sit on the kerb, then they searched me – and ten minutes down the road, there was a massive billboard of me, and their kids are probably listening to my music. That was around the time when Time Out had me as Jesus. In America they wouldn’t release those photos because I was black, but I didn’t find that out till much later.

  The first time I experienced racism properly was when I started flying First Class on aeroplanes. One time, I was boarding a transatlantic flight with British Airways, and when I got to the entrance where the hostess directs you to your row, I turned left to go into First Class, and the woman came after me.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ she firmly stated, ‘you’re going the wrong way – Economy’s that way!’

  ‘But I haven’t got an Economy ticket,’ I replied, showing her my boarding card. She obviously thought that being black I couldn’t possibly have a First Class ticket. I flipped out so bad they fell over themselves apologising to me, and even gave me a bottle of champagne to try and make me forget about it.

  The way I see it, I never experienced racism in the same way that other people might’ve. I’ve seen racism against white people, where I’d go to a club with my white friends, and we couldn’t get in – not because I’m black, but because they could tell we were from Knowle West. Maybe that’s given me a different outlook on things, but I always thought that racism didn’t go beyond those street hassles. I didn’t think it affected things like music, where you’d expect people to be more open-minded.

  I remember a meeting at Island where Julian Palmer was trying to explain to me why I had singles in the charts, and my album was at No.3, but I wasn’t getting airplay on Radio One. The reason he gave shocked the fuck out of me.

  ‘How come bands who sound like me,’ I asked him, ‘who are ripping off my music, are getting on Radio One, and I’m not?’

  ‘Because you’re black, Tricky, and they’re white!’ Julian replied.

  I was dumbfounded. That really was an education for me. I should know about racism: I’m a black guy who grew up in a white ghetto, but it takes a white guy from London who went to a good school to tell me about racism. How does that make sense? Shouldn’t I be teaching him about racism? I would never have thought in a million years that radio aren’t gonna play someone because they’re black. If you’d told me that before, I would’ve said you were absolutely nuts. You see, with my mixed-race background, I just don’t think like that – because I never saw race in that way before.

  I didn’t believe Julian at first, but these wake-up moments, when I was starting to have success in the world, were the first times I found out about institutionalised racism. When it comes to things like First Class in aeroplanes and radio airplay, you’ve grown up assuming that society is more decent than that, that radio wouldn’t discriminate against a record because it was made by a black person. Because I was a street kid, I didn’t think it went that high. I didn’t think it was that institutionalised.

  It’s when people make assumptions about you that you see how deep the racism runs. I had a vintage Rolex, and the strap was a special custom-made design. I think the whole thing had cost $25,000 altogether. When I was back visiting London, I walked into a Rolex store, and a black girl who worked there was following me around the store, giving me dirty looks, with a vibe like, ‘What do you want?’ So a black guy can even get racism off a black girl. It was like, ‘I’ve got twenty-five grand on my wrist, and I could drop another fifty right now if I wanted to!’

  That’s one thing about LA that I like. You can go to a shop in LA, a jewellery shop, and they won’t even look twice, because people who look like me might easily drop sixty grand on a piece of jewellery. We have this race system and this class system in England, and they’re kind of tangled up together. It’s funny how it’s black people as well as white people who perpetuate it. I’ve even had an Indian man follow me around a 7–11 store, but then he let a white guy, who equally might be stealing something, walk around unsupervised. I went to an Asian store near Island’s office in Chiswick to buy a packet of fags, and was followed around the store – and my album was No.3 in the charts.

  At Paddington station around that time, I went to get a taxi: I’ve gone to the first one and he’s left, gone to the second one and he’s left – the third one, he leaves. Fourth, fifth … It was like, ‘I’ve got money now!’ Before, me and Whitley couldn’t afford a taxi. Now that I could afford a taxi, I couldn’t fucking get one!

  With taxis on High Street Kensington, I used to do these little experiments. If I had dark clothes on, the taxi would go past me. If I had a white windbreaker on with brown trousers, the taxi would stop for me. If I’ve got nothing in my hands, and I’m wearing dark clothes – no taxi. If I’ve got dark clothes on and I’m carrying five shopping bags from Selfridge’s, one’ll stop for me straight away. As soon as they see those expensive bags – bang! But dark clothes and a Tesco bag, they’ll go straight past me.

  It’s racism, or prejudice, but it goes beyond the colour of your skin. It’s a class system, too. And do you know what’s mad? A taxi driver will get a bigger tip from me than any white guy in a suit. I’ll go, keep the tenner, mate! Rich people ain’t giving a tenner to a taxi driver – just two quid or something. Dark clothes, no chance. Selfridge’s bags, no problem. It’s mind-blowing, but what’s even more mind-blowing is that I played games like that. Pretty fucking twisted, right?

  It’s different in America, where money talks and there’s more affluent black people about. Over there you know when you’re seeing pure racism, but it’s not class-system racism. In some ways, I’ve been more offended in England then I have in America. You know, a black girl following me around a Rolex store … Not that black people ain’t got money in England, but … I don’t know, it’s just a different thing. I can’t remember ever getting followed around a store in America. I’ve had Korean guys be rude to me in New York, but not followed around in a store like in England. Or taxis just driving off.

  Having said that, one time quite recently I was on tour with my band and we were staying in this hotel in America, and I’m paying for everybody to stay in there – my band, my tour manager, everyone. I came down in the elevator and they were all sat there in the restaurant, and I go over and chat for a bit and then head off up to my room. A black waiter then went over to them and said, ‘Who is that guy? Is he staying here? Is he bothering you?’ He’s a black guy, and I’m a black guy, and I’m staying there, and paying for seven people.

  I think in America it’s about cash, and if you look like you can afford to pay for stuff. In New York, I was walking past this really posh shop, and this African beaded chair caught my eye. I walked inside, and this white woman gave me a really dirty look through her spectacles, as if to say, ‘You can’t afford anything in here, are you thinking of robbing it?’ I said to her, ‘How much is that?’ She goes, ‘Five thousand dollars.’ I go, ‘I’ll take it!’

  I suppose we’re all prejudiced in some way, whether you’re black, white, Asian … I bought that chair just to show her that I could. I dropped five grand there and then, and she couldn’t believe it. And when I gave her my address for it to be delivered, she couldn’t believe that either.

  And this chair for five grand – it has never been sat in. It’s still in storage somewhere in New York, I think. I’ve never sat in it, no one has. It’s just there.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SPEAKING IN TONGUES

  I don’t have a fear of death. I’m not scared of stuff like that, because if you don’t accept death, then you never accept life. Obviously I don
’t want to die, but I know it’s coming, so I ain’t scared of it. I’ve nearly died a couple of times from asthma attacks, like when I had the electrodes on my chest and the aliens came. Before I passed out it was scary, but once I went, I didn’t feel nothing – no fear, no anything. Then I saw the lights on the ambulance that I thought was a spaceship. It’s probably scary when you are going for real, but once you have stepped over, there ain’t no fear then. That time, I guess I never actually stepped over. Nearly but not quite.

  In New York, I had another near-death experience: I had someone put a gun in my face. First of all, it was a shock, then when you realise you have no control over it, it’s like being so scared of something that your body shuts down and you just don’t give a fuck anymore. The fear grips you so much, it starts affecting you physically, and then your body just says, ‘Fuck it!’

  This happened in the early hours of the morning at the Bowery Bar, after I’d just played a big sold-out show at the Irving Plaza in ’97. I was with Amani, and her female friend Lee; a guy from Bristol called Andy Whittle who was my tour manager; this creative director called Earle Sebastian; and the owner of the bar, Serge Becker, who later became a well-known restaurateur. Serge had kept the bar open for us, so we were the only people in there at maybe two or three in the morning when these four guys came in and tried to rob it.

  We were sitting in one of the round-tabled booths. There were people on my left and people on my right. They were all talking and laughing and drinking shots of whisky or tequila, and I was in the middle, rolling a spliff, not really listening. Then I looked up, and not far in front of us there was a guy with a balaclava on, waving a gun. There was another guy across the room, but nobody else had noticed them. I saw what was going on, and I carried on making the spliff. I didn’t want to tell my friends, like, ‘Oh, we’ve got guys pointing guns at us,’ because I didn’t really want to say anything. It was just, ‘They ain’t noticed it yet!’ They were in their own world.

  Then, one of them noticed, and one of the balaclava guys pulled the round table out and said, ‘Get on the floor! Under the table!’ I was laughing at him, like I thought it was a prank that maybe Serge had put on for us. One of the girls went down and then came back up again, and they threw some drink in her face. They beat up the owner and kicked him a few times in the head. Andy, who was sat next to me, went under the table, and Amani went under the table, but I didn’t want to, because then I wouldn’t be able to see anything.

  I pretended like I didn’t understand what the guy was talking about.

  ‘Get under the table!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Get – under – the – table!’

  ‘Why? What’s going on?’

  Then, it was mad – the guy touched me, really nice. He had roughed up a couple of the other people and was aggressive towards them, but he put the gun in my face, and put his hand on my shoulder really nicely, and just slid me down. From that, I realised that he didn’t want to kill me. He was there for the money. I remember the gun had a stag, or a horse, on the butt. He slid me down really slow, and then they went off to get the money. Apparently the other two guys were trying to get Serge to open the safe, and he was like, ‘I don’t know the combo!’ so they found a bar manager who was still there out the back, and he opened the safe.

  Talking about it afterwards, we reckoned it was an inside job, because they knew who Serge was, to ask him to open the safe, but I don’t think they got much, because their timing was wrong – the till had already been emptied.

  What interested me was that a couple of the guys were really traumatised, whereas the girls handled it better. Earle, the director, had problems – he wasn’t very well – and one of the other guys, he doesn’t really want to talk about it. People will stereotype, but the women weren’t affected as badly. Everyone was scared at the time, but I talked to the two girls about it when I was in New York, and Amani was even laughing about it. The guys were not the same.

  I would say that women are stronger than men. A man gets sent off to war, and they’re all shooting each other across the field or whatever, but the woman is usually at home looking after the kids, watching them starve. I’d say the women have the worse job, having to listen to their kid cry because it’s hungry. That would be scarier to me. I’m a dad myself, and hearing your baby cry is one of the worst things you can experience. You will have issues about that. So I’d say women have to be tougher.

  When you watch two men fight, even though it’ll be fairly vicious, they’ll still want to look good. When two women fight, there’s no looking good about it, it’s as vicious as fuck! Because they ain’t got the ego that men have. A man don’t wanna lose a fight, not just because he doesn’t want to get hurt – it’s because he doesn’t want to be embarrassed and have his ego dented. When two women fight, they don’t give a fuck about any of that. It’s not an ego thing, it’s a rival thing, and they go at it, no holding back.

  It’s hard for me not to see women as tough, because I’ve seen women in my family have actual fistfights. But not many women become all-out gangsters, which is interesting. I think it’s to do with men having more ego and women being more down-to-earth. And they are usually the ones taking care of the children. You can’t be a full-time criminal and totally take care of your kid. Women are just more realistic.

  After I’d been in New York about a year and a half, I was having a look around the Bronx, when I started talking to this Jamaican guy on the street, called Rick, an immigration lawyer by trade. I asked him, ‘Where can I get Jamaican food?’ He took me to this place, and there I met a bunch of guys who became firm friends. I’d go there now and again to have a smoke and listen to music.

  Coincidentally, my dad’s younger brother was living in exactly the same area, and I got to meet him all because of that. He’d never been to London; he’d gone straight from Jamaica to New York. I learnt also that my dad’s other brother lives in Miami, because there’s a big Jamaican community there, too.

  On one of my American tours after that, I brought my dad over for a few dates, and at the end he came and stayed with me in New York for a while. I would get him a car to see his brother for a couple of days, then he would come back and his brother would come up to my house with his sons. I’m sure he must have liked that.

  These Jamaican guys from the Bronx that I started hanging around with were all very naughty boys. At the time, I thought they were just regular Jamaican G’s, street guys, but I later found out from Rick that they were a bit more serious than that. They all had motorbikes, cars, guns, money – you knew something was going on. But in the few years we were knocking about, I never knew the full extent.

  The positive thing about it for me was that I was hanging out with people who were not involved in the music industry. It was like I was slotting back into life as I used to live it. We were going to reggae nights together and I slotted back into a thing where people wouldn’t recognise me. There used to be about twenty of us sometimes, and I was just one of those people. I was definitely on the run from celebrity, and from Bristol. It was almost like I was running away from the success, and Bristol was a part of that success. It was just getting away from everything.

  For all that, after a while it was getting to the point where I was feeling I had to get out of Manhattan. I wanted to get away from the city, mainly for my daughter Mazy. Being in the middle of Manhattan with a kid is too difficult. Going to a play area is just chaos there, with millions of cars everywhere, which is always stressful for a dad. Just walking around in Manhattan with a two- or three-year-old kid was horrendous. It was traumatising; you’re worried all the time.

  I decided to move right out to rural New Jersey, and bought a four-bedroom house with two acres of land in this wooded area in Llewellyn Park, NJ. It was absolutely fucking beautiful out there, with deer everywhere that roamed into the garden after dark. In the summer, you could sit outside and the deer would come up, almost right in front of you.
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  At night, it was as dark as fuck. You couldn’t see anything. There were no proper streetlights, just a few lamps around the property. There really was nothing there, apart from these houses every couple of miles. Mine was like one of those old colonial country houses made out of wood.

  It was a totally different pace of life, and I was sort of ready for it, sort of not. I moved there for Mazy, and once she was going to reception class in school in England, she would come over mostly in the school holidays. It was lovely for her out there: she could run around to her heart’s content, and I didn’t have to worry about cars or anything, so I found it much more relaxing being with her there.

  During term time I still went into Manhattan, because even though it was such a totally remote environment, you could be in the heart of the action in forty minutes, if the traffic wasn’t too bad. So I would go out partying quite regularly when Mazy wasn’t there. I also built a recording studio in there, so I was making music the whole time.

  I liked it when my family were there – Mazy, and sometimes Martina and CC would come out and stay for the school vacation. During those times, it was amazing. But when I was on my own in a four-bedroom house with two acres of land around, and it took twenty minutes to get to any local shops to get coffee – and I still didn’t drive – well, then I didn’t enjoy it so much.

  To beat the isolation, I was driving into Manhattan more and more often, and running up a considerable tab with a car service in the process. It’s different from an actual chauffeur that you employ, you just make bookings when you need them, but you have to be careful to remember when you’ve booked them. I would have the driver take me out to a club, wait outside the club, and then take me all the way back to New Jersey. If I had to do something back there the next morning, the driver would come in and sleep on the couch, I would go to bed, and then the following day he would take me into Manhattan again.