Tricky - Black Steel

What this video is

Released March 1995 in the heart of the Britpop era, 'Black Steel' served as a deliberate counter-statement to the guitar-band monoculture dominating UK charts. Tricky's Maxinquaye beat albums by Blur, Oasis, Pulp, and Elastica to the top of many year-end critical polls. The video and its promotional campaign were noted for androgynous gender-bending imagery that maximised the record's cross-genre appeal. The track…

Why it matters

A foundational artefact of the trip-hop canon and a key document in the Bristol Sound's international breakthrough. The video visualises the genre's defining formal tension: the collision of hip-hop source material, rock instrumentation, electronic texture, and deeply unconventional vocal casting.…

The director

British music video director active from the mid-1990s onward. Known for work with Tricky, Babylon Zoo, Tori Amos, Jamiroquai, Des'ree, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Jewel, Bryan Adams, Anastacia, Simply Red, and Richard Ashcroft. Twice winner of the…