I have nothing but utmost respect for Public Enemy. Spearheaded a movement and a scene. Fought against tide and time to get their albums released. Survived countless censorship attempts.

With that said, Tricky’s cover of Black Steel is a thousandfold times better than Public Enemy’s original track, Black Steel in the hour of chaos.

Frustrated with little say in Massive Attack’s meteoric rise, Tricky branched out and released Maxinquaye in 1995, an album that is as good as anything Massive Attack has released, but sometimes gets overlooked by the other two powerhouses of Trip Hop, Portishead and Massive Attack.

Black Steel re-arranges the rap classic into a cybernetic punkish track, where Martina Topley-Bird’s vocals and flow take the classic into a rarefied atmosphere.

Black Steel was the fourth (out of six!) single from Maxinquaye, and even if Tricky never reached the sales figures of this strong debut, his career has been an interesting one.

-Sam J. Valdés López