Bristol Sound City Home of trip hop named UK's most musical city.

Bristol has been named the most musical city in Britain in a survey published by the Performing Rights Society this week.

According to the survey, the city, which is home to Massive Attack, Tricky and Portishead, has produced more musicians relative to population size than any other in the UK. This puts it ahead of traditional creative hot spots such as Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool.

Massive Attack's Daddy G said despite the city's association with the slave trade, Bristol's multi cultural population has helped create an interesting music scene: "There's a huge West Indian population in Bristol, which is really amazing because it's helped influence the sound and the textures of Bristol.

"We started off as the Wild Bunch playing in St Paul's, which is the heavily dominated West Indian area. Back in the 80's the police didn't come into that area much so it was slightly lawless and we could do whatever we wanted."

"It was lawless and we could do whatever we wanted."
Massive Attack's Daddy G



The PRS used its 65,000-strong database to pinpoint the birthplaces of its members. These figures were then weighted by population, leaving London at number 26, despite the capital having the most musicians living in it.

Ellis Rich, chairman of PRS, said: "Bristol has been a longstanding contributor to the British music scene, constantly injecting its unique pizzazz of trip-hop and rock bands.

"The city's culture has always warmed to an eclectic music dynamic, paving the way forward for many of the country's greatest venues whilst also inspiring a hotbed of music talent."

The researchers who collected data for the PRS survey found that music is "engrained into the culture" of the city, with the Clifton cider pub, the Coronation Tap, being voted the UK Music Pub of The Year for two years running.

Portishead's Geoff Barrow said Bristol is home to a long line of forward thinking artists: "If you look at the musicians that came out of Bristol traditionally, whether it was The Pop Group or Mark Stuart and the Maffia it was pretty out there and interesting."