Whether voicing the finest hip hop acts to come out of the UK, or flipping some of the most putatively underground acts to emerge from the USA, Will Ashon’s hip hop label, Big Dada, has turned ten and decided to celebrate with a double CD that compiles their past material with present mutterings. Having diverged markedly from their early albums, the unifying factor behind Big Dada’s releases is a sort of wayward ambiguity rather than a particularly common sound.
Well Deep sees the label covering a great deal of geographic and stylistic ground, generally with pleasing results. The imprint’s international roster includes Parisian rappers TTC, American art-rappers cLOUDDEAD, and, most recently (un)signed, sleazy Philadelphian booty-bass troupe Spank Rock. Also included are some tracks from baile funk enthusiast Diplo, the first – and so far, only – predominately instrumental producer to be signed to the label.
Although Big Dada is a hip hop label based in the UK, and not a UK hip hop label, the acts to come out of the UK are the label’s most lauded and forward-thinking artists. The man who would record Big Dada’s first album proper, Roots Manuva, has three tracks on the first CD that detail his time with the label; indeed, Manuva’s distinctive mix of dancehall, dub, and electronica redrew a viable blueprint for UK hip hop that paved the way for So Solid Crew and the grime that followed, and he is, for many, an embodiment of Big Dada’s maverick approach to commercialism and hip hop. Fellow South London MC/producer, Ty, is also heavily featured and his sophisticated coarseness acts as a nice counterpoint to Manuva’s awfully deep rhyme saying. And, finally, Bow-born godfather of grime, Wiley, has made it to Big Dada and Well Deep (appropriately) capitalises on this recent signing of grime’s pacesetter.
Compiling a label’s artists poses the predictable risk of tedium, however, Well Deep captures Big Dada’s development, diversity and philosophy toward hip hop without being a sort of ‘best of’ collection of tracks. Even so, it would definitely be a ‘best of’ worth adding to the collection.
Anthony Pollock
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