Guest singers on 'Blowback' include the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Cyndi Lauper, Ed Kowalczyk and not so well known artists as Hawkman, Stephanie McKay and Ambersunshower, with whom he already worked in 1996 for the charity compilation 'Childline'. An alternate version of one of the songs ('Diss Never') with Alanis Morissette is still unreleased, because her label Maverick holds it back. As always Tricky has taken a totally different direction than on his previous albums, though this time it seems like he's not running away, but taking a step forward. The french bonus CD features one song with Italian singer Costanza Francavilla called My Head'. She was in the audience at one of Tricky’s shows in Italy in 2001 and slipped a tape with demos to his drummer Perry Melius and the next day Tricky calls her and invites her to record with him. 

After touring almost all year in 2001 Tricky is recording songs again in summer 2002 with Costanza. In 2003 the album - called 'Vulnerable' - is released: Costanza sings on most of the songs, co-wrote two of them (Stay and What Is Wrong) and will also go on the following tour. Tricky calls the album "the best record I've done". His own label (formerly known as Durban Poison, then Urban Poison) is now called Brown Punk and will release his album in the US. Costanza is also on the label, starting her solo career, later she starts her own label (ZerOKilled) and will release her album 'Sonic Diaries' on it. One song of her ('Desire') ends up on the 'Back To Mine' compilation that Tricky releases this year. Besides Tricky’s favorite artists like Kate Bush and Eric B. and Rakim it also features Chet Baker’s 'Funny Valentine' that he will sample for his album ‘False Idols’ in 2013. Also some Tricky collaborations end up on that compilation: 'How we ride' with Radanna and 'Receive us' with Radagan (both released as bonus tracks on Vulnerable). And a song by Lickle Kings, which are his tour musicians Perry Melius and Wayne Nunes, who will later release a song with Tricky as Warrior Charge in 2006). Another interesting song on there is 'Symphony for irony' by Kat Cross, she also performed this song live with Tricky in 2008 to the music of 'Hell Is Round The Corner'.

A short summer tour with Costanza as the female singer follows after the release of 'Vulnerable', Tricky called it the "13 tour". He explained the meaning of the number 13 in an interview: "I had a dream about the number 13 just before the album was coming out. I woke up, called up my manager and told him to take two tracks off the album (cos there were 15 songs) and put a 13 on the cover. Then I was flying to England and I was put in row 13A.Then I get a call in London saying there’s a kid who all the labels wanna sign but he doesn’t want to be with anyone but me, so I set up a meeting. He walks into my hotel, takes off his hat and he’s got the number 13 tattooed on the back of his head. And 13 is the letter M in the alphabet… - Which is the first letter of his daughter and his Mum - and my manager’s got 13 letters in his name and…" (Student UK). No wonder the tour starts on a Friday, 13th! By the way: Tricky also got a 13 tattoowed on his neck (I don't know when that happened, maybe on that tour, as he gets a lot of his tattoos on tour, as you can read in this tattoo magazine).

In 2003 also Martina Topley-Bird's first solo album gets released ('Quixotic'), with some help of Tricky: although Martina wrote most of the tracks with Nick Bird, Alex McGowan and Steve Crittall, Tricky is involved in five songs (writing, producing, programming): Sandpaper Kisses, Ragga, I Still Feel, Ilya and Stevie's, he also does vocals on Ragga. But when will we hear new music from Tricky? That will take about five years...