It's a long way from Tricky's appearance on Massive Attack's 1991 trip-hop benchmark Blue Lines to the thick Afrodelic world of Blowback - the producer/DJ/singer's career has been a circuitous path of skirting the obvious while working with artists as diverse as Björk to Live. Behind him, he's left a trail of albums as prickly as they are essential.

Tricky was born Adrian Thaws in 1970, in the Knowle West housing estate outside of the British port of Bristol. His mother Maxine Quaye committed suicide when he was five. Shortly after, his father abandoned him. A street kid, Tricky got his nickname when he turned up six weeks late for a rendezvous with a friend. It was a rough youth. His distinct vocal rasp emerged after a girlfriend jammed her fingers down his throat.

He might have been just another petty hood if he didn't make two important connections during his teenage years. The first was the discovery of Martina Topley-Bird, his current partner and mother of his daughter Maisie. She was singing at a bus stop. They were both playing hooky. During this time, he also fell in with the Wild Bunch, the sound system whose members morphed into Massive Attack.

With them, Tricky wrote "Blue Lines," "Five Man Army" and "Daydreaming," tracks that appeared on the acclaimed Blue Lines. But ultimately, Tricky hated the record. "I found the music totally soulless," he claims. When Massive Attack's leader 3D rejected his increasingly explicit lyrics, Tricky struck out on his own.

His ace in the hole was "Aftermath," a mixture of clanking percussion, murmured ravings and Martina's angelic voice. Tricky said the song came from his mother's spirit, but it stayed on a cassette until 1993, when the demo reached the Island label. With the release of "Aftermath" and his debut Maxinquaye, Tricky suddenly was the future of British hip-hop...and a genuine superstar.

With a dense, compelling style and an reliable sense of experimentation, Tricky became the man of the moment. He and Björk became lovers, and pop stars like Alison Moyet, Blur's Damon Albarn and Neneh Cherry lined up to appear on a disc he deemed Nearly God. He launched his own label, Durban Poison. He appeared on magazine covers. Tricky picked fights with Goldie after the junglist stole Björk's affections and badmouthed Finley Quaye when the reggae singer stole his mother's name. And unsurprisingly, the street kid in him retched at the mainstream acceptance of his 1996 album Pre-Millennium Tension.

Moving to New York to escape the sycophants, he ultimately cultivated a rep for dark excess. There were rumors he was into voodoo. His concerts were terrifying affairs performed in pitch blackness - often he kept his back to the audience. But for a roughneck with a fractious way of doing business, he sure had a solid work ethic: music came constantly, as he spit out EPs and appeared on soundtracks.

1998's Angels With Dirty Faces seethed with negativity, lashing out at anyone who dared to misunderstand him. It also made collaborators out of Anthrax's Scott Ian and P.J. Harvey. Tricky pushed Martina further into the background of his off-kilter bone machine, and stopped working with her altogether when The Face likened their relationship to that of Ike and Tina Turner.

Paranoid fantasies have a way of becoming harsh reality. With Cypress Hill's DJ Muggs, he created Juxtapose, perhaps his most trenchant examination of the highs and lows of being ghetto fabulous. But urban radio continued to ignore this hero of the tastemakers. By 2000, Island no longer considered him a priority and he left as an untouchable.

"It's astonishing how dark your life can get with out you even noticing," he said. After trying to throw himself out a window, Tricky learned his psychotic episodes were a symptom of candida. He has since regulated the condition by avoiding dairy, sugar, and yeast. "Nothing out of cans," as he puts it. Odd but okay. He's used to doing things the hard way.

"I've never been a commercial artist," Tricky says. "But I could easily do what Public Enemy do, and bring the mainstream to me." He made good on the boast. For his new album Blowback, he fielded calls from fans like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, ultimately luring them into the studio. Closer to Lauryn Hill than Slick Rick, it's the record he knew he should make - audaciously crossing urban themes with metal on "Girls," mixing his threatening grunt with uplifting ragga chatting, and having fun by covering neglected nuggets like Nirvana's "Something In the Way" and the theme to TV's Wonder Woman.

Tricky has emerged from the shadows of late night interviews on 120 Minutes and has begun showing up on magazine covers again. "Evolution Revolution Love" became his first ever playlisted record, with its reggae-chanted choruses stacked end-to-end. He's even started performing with the lights on. For Tricky, it's all happening again. And now he's finally in shape to enjoy it.