(2 of 2)
Despite their differences, these performers are united by a love of disunity -- by their willingness, even eagerness, to defy categorization and expectation, to mix and match several musical genres and traditions in order to make new sounds. Des'ree was born in London, but her mother is from Guyana and her father from Barbados; she spent her formative teenage years in Barbados listening to calypso and reggae, both of which can be heard gently rocking her songs today. Tricky, son of a Jamaican mother and a "half-white, half-African" father, comes from the British city of Bristol, a multiethnic urban center that inspired him to make "mutant music for a mutant age." His stylistically eclectic CD Maxinquaye is driven by churning, yearning hip-hop rhythms accentuated by grungy guitar riffs. On the track Pumpkin, Tricky recycles guitar licks from the alternative-rock band Smashing Pumpkins and inserts them into a haunting aria. On Black Steel he employs a female vocalist, Martine, to cover a song by the black-nationalist rap group Public Enemy.
Many of these British R.-and-B. stars are the children of immigrants and are given to feeling like aliens even in their native England. D'Arby was born in New York City, but found his muse after moving to Europe as a teen. It is perhaps this feeling of dislocation that gives such musicians the creative wanderlust to transcend standard pop. "The value of acts like Tricky and Portishead is that they're giving people fits as to how to classify them," says D'Arby. "Guess what? Most of the interesting aspects of life don't fit into an easily defined category." One hopes the curiosity and ambitious invention of these new acts will catch on in across the Atlantic. The British may not be coming, but where they're going is fascinating.