It was 1997 and the time had come to choose a university. I thought I was destined to be a lawyer (though, in hindsight, I was trying to be someone else’s version of myself). Sorry, mum and dad. Bristol had a top-ranking faculty with a decent rugby team – an important consideration at the time. But none of that mattered. What really made me turn west was a group called Massive Attack. I was obsessed with these guys – everything from their soulful yet gritty sound system vibe to their relative anonymity and that enigmatic 🔥 logo (which I threatened to get a tattoo of at one point).

The voice I gravitated to was Tricky Kid from Knowle West, hushed but plucky and with an undercurrent of menace. He would nonchalantly drift in front of the mic through a heady plume of smoke, do his thing and then slip away to roam around St Paul’s and south Bristol. Fame and work commitments were the last things on his mind ... but he was ambitious, intrepid. It wasn’t long before the kid bust out on his own.