Big Dada began life as an offshoot of Coldcut's Ninja label in 1997 when they released Misanthropic's Alpha Prhyme 12-inch - a collaboration between Luke Vibert and New Flesh MC Juice Aleem. The first compilation, Whole Black Styles, appeared in 1998, and their first artist album - Roots Manuva's Brand New Second Hand - followed in 1999. Although both Coldcut and Ninja grew out of old school hip-hop, the label had moved into more experimental territory by the mid-90s. With the trip-hop tag still hanging over them, it was felt another stable was needed to house the more MC-focused music Ninja wanted to release. While Big Dada is often seen as a British hip-hop label, they treat both geography and genres with equal disdain, providing a home to French rappers TTC as well as kindred spirits across the Atlantic like MF Doom, NMS and cLOUDDEAD. And the accents in the label's beats are as wide as that in their rhymes, from the jiggy send-up of the Majesticons to the interstellar jazz beats of TTC, via the more traditional hip-hop formulations of Gamma and the bass-heavy echoes of Jamaican dancehall found in the sound of Infinite Livez and Lotek Hi-Fi.