Buju Banton
Buju Banton first came to the world's attention with the chilling success of the gay-baiting "Boom Boom Bye Bye," but he's undergone a miraculous conversion to conscious dancehall icon - building bridges rather than strafing them with gunfire. His sandpaper bellow is one of contemporary music's great instruments.

DJ Shadow
Hayward, California's Josh Davis is the DJ as superstar - taking LPs liberated from suburban record stores and utilizing each funky break as foundation stones for his own warped edifices. With 1996's sampledelic Endtroducing, he essentially altered the sonic landscape for good.

Massive Attack
Tricky has always enjoyed a love-hate relationship with his first musical employers, but the two artists continue to eye each other up warily. If Maxinquaye was a Pandora's Box opened up by Blue Lines' success, the Attack's 1998 album Mezzanine was a frightening retaliation of booming bass and guitars.

The Specials
Tricky's favorite group. The Specials adapted the Jamaican ska sound into the sound of riot-torn urban Britain. Although since lead singer Terry Hall left they've soldiered on as a party band, 1981's sublime "Ghost Town" remains a chilling evocation of a Britain riven by violence and racism.