Massive show from Massive Attack

Massive Attack arrive on New Zealand's shores this week. Tracey Bond talks to band member 3D about how hip-hop changed the world.

Robert "3D" Del Naja and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall are credited with creating the trip-hop genre with chill-out tunes like Karmacoma and Safe from Harm.

The band, Which originally started off as a trio, has gone on to release five studio albums.

"A lot of bands back in the day said they'd love to be us, because writing each album would be a new experience instead of going back to the same starting point," Del Naja told Stuff.co.nz.

"Maybe hip-hop changed the way everyone thought about music. Back in the day music was quite tribal and there were quite clear boundaries between different types of music.

"From the moment we started sampling things, basically stealing and borrowing stuff and making it into new pieces of music, it meant you were bringing different types of music and different genres of music into the same studio.

"At the same time, in the rap scene, there was that idea of sampling say a chorus from Talking Heads and Run DMC sampling rock so everything was fair and open game."

As well as material off new release Heligoland, fans who go to see the group play at Vector Arena on March 25 will be treated to plenty of trips down memory lane, with tracks from Mezzanine and Protection years.

Del Naja says those tracks still have as much relevance today as they did when they were first recorded.

"There are some people who are there for the nostalgia and there are some people there for the new stuff. We have a huge range of people at our gigs, we have parents coming with their children, which is really cool."

Del Naja, a former artist, started working on the concept for the show in April 2009.

"It's very different from when it was made in the studio, and it’s very much about the visual experience and what I can get away with."

The show features a giant LED screen which the group uses to project topical words and slogans onto.

"It’s like graffiti. It has a transience. It’s there for a few hours and then its disappears again."

"We change it wherever we go and try and adopt as much local information, whether its trivial or serious, and juxtapose everything."

Massive Attack
March 25: Vector Arena, Auckland

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- © Fairfax NZ News