Martina Gillian Topley-Bird (née Topley; born 7 May 1975) is an English singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who first gained fame as the featured female vocalist on trip hop pioneer Tricky's debut album, Maxinquaye (1995).

In 2003, Topley-Bird released her debut solo album, Quixotic, which was critically praised and earned her a Mercury Prize nomination.

She has also collaborated with Gorillaz, appearing on their album Demon Days (2005), as well as with Mark Lanegan, Diplo, and Massive Attack on Heligoland (2010), which she followed by a world tour with the group.

Her song "Sandpaper Kisses" was covered by Stephen Marley and sampled by artists such as Berry Weight and The Weeknd and used in the video game Fahrenheit.

[5] In 1993, as a teenager at Clifton College, Topley-Bird was discovered by trip hop pioneer Tricky when he saw her sitting on a wall near his house, singing to herself.

"[8] Topley-Bird continued her collaboration with Tricky on his follow-up albums Nearly God (1996), Pre-Millennium Tension (1996) and Angels with Dirty Faces (1998).

She commented on the ideas underpinning the album, saying: A lot of it is about the notion of physical proximity relative to emotional connections between people.

70 on the UK Albums Chart,[9] received positive reviews from critics, and was a finalist for the 2003 Mercury Music Prize.

[11] The album received generally positive critical reception; the BBC said it "warps reflections of Ella Fitzgerald, two-tone ska, dark psychedelia and Pentangle's 'acid folk' into unsettling shapes ...

It's an often astonishing album and one which, if Tricky's forthcoming comeback can't match it, may curse him to be known as 'that bloke who used to rap with Martina Topley Bird.

'"[13] In 2010, Topley-Bird appeared on the album Heligoland by Massive Attack, lending her voice on the tracks "Psyche" and "Babel".

Topley-Bird performed Maxinquaye live at the Sundance Festival, London, in April 2012,[14] and also appeared on the tracks "Open" and "Secret" on electronic musician Clark's album Iradelphic.

[16] In 2018 Martina Topley-Bird released the single "Solitude", which would subsequently appear on the four-track EP MTB Continued.

In a The Guardian interview, Topley-Bird stated she was a lot happier with the end results compared to her previous albums.