Ricky Ross - Trouble Came Looking (2013)

Ricky began writing ‘Trouble Came Looking’ as the wheels started to fall off the economy in 2008. Set against a backdrop of global economic recession, the record’s raw, acoustic tales of poverty, displacement and desperation heralded Ross’s starkest and most urgent work to date. But its tales are imbued with the warmth and resilience of human nature. At the time of release, he said of ‘Trouble Came Looking’: “I wanted to tell these people’s stories, to lay them down, without anything getting in the way. The songs are rough round the edges, they’re barely written. I’ve never done that before.” As the review in The Scotsman said: “The sentiments are bare too, with Ross tackling his subject matter head-on in Woody Guthriesque storytelling mode. As the title suggests, ‘Trouble Came Looking’ has the blues, the 21st-century austerity blues to be precise”.