21 Facts About Massive Attack

Massive Attack started as a spin-off production quartet in 1988, with the independently released song, "Any Love", sung by falsetto-voiced singer-songwriter Carlton McCarthy, and then they signed to Circa Records in 1990—committing to deliver six studio albums and a "best of" compilation.

Massive Attack used guest vocalists, interspersed with their own sprechgesang stylings, on top of what became regarded as an essentially British creative sampling production; a trademark sound that fused down-tempo hip hop, soul, reggae and other eclectic references, musical and lyrical.

Around this time, Del Naja, with Davidge decamped into Ridge Farm studio with friends and band members of Lupine Howl towards a fourth Massive Attack LP, taking things even further into a rock direction.

Massive Attack decided to instead work with a production duo, Robot Club, in another studio, feeling that he would be more free to develop tracks in the way he wanted.

Later that year, Massive Attack decided to release their contractually obliged compilation album Collected in 2006.

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In February 2007, Massive Attack hosted a charity benefit for the Hoping Foundation, a charity for Palestinian children.

In 2008, it was announced that Massive Attack were to curate the UK's Southbank Meltdown, a week-long event.

On 28 January 2016, Massive Attack released a new EP, Ritual Spirit, which includes the four songs released on Fantom.

In July 2020, Massive Attack released a political audiovisual EP called Eutopia.

Massive Attack were scheduled to headline the 2022 edition of the Primavera Sound music festival in Barcelona, Spain, but an unnamed band member's serious illness forced the band to cancel its appearance with the rest of its European tour.

Massive Attack was strongly opposed to the 2003 war against Iraq, and with fellow musician Damon Albarn personally paid for full-page advertisements against the war in the NME magazine.

Massive Attack have worked with Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Stop the War Coalition, while having helped fund a legal challenge to military intervention in international courts.

In 2008, Massive Attack curated the annual Meltdown festival on London's south bank.

Massive Attack donated all proceeds from their 2010 EP Atlas Air to War Child, a charity the band previously supported when they contributed to The Help Album.

In 2017, Massive Attack performed three shows in support of Hoping, an organisation that helps raise money and supports projects for Palestinian youth in refugee camps in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria.

In September 2018, Massive Attack criticised the Mayor of Bristol for cancelling the Bristol Arena project in the Temple Meads area of Bristol.

In November 2019, along with other public figures, Massive Attack signed a letter supporting Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn describing him as "a beacon of hope in the struggle against emergent far-right nationalism, xenophobia and racism in much of the democratic world" and endorsed him in the 2019 UK general election.

Massive Attack have previously played two shows in Israel, but have declined recent offers.

In 2010, Massive Attack donated the income from a Lincoln car commercial to the clean up campaign after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Since October 2018, Massive Attack have been supporting the climate activists of the Extinction Rebellion group, known as XR, which conducted protests in London in October 2018 then April 2019.

On 28 November 2019, Robert Del Naja announced that Massive Attack partnered with a research centre based at the University of Manchester to explore the music industry's climate impact.