Coldcut

British DJ duo Coldcut helped pioneer the art of sampling in pop and dance music during the 1980s, and have remained on the forefront of music technology for the entirety of their career. The duo translated the freewheeling spirit of pirate radio onto wax with innovative records such as 1987's Say Kids, What Time Is It? and their seminal remix of Eric B. & Rakim's "Paid in Full," mashing together a cornucopia of breakbeats, musical hooks, and samples from children's television shows and movies, among a multitude of other sources. The duo achieved chart success through collaborations with artists such as Lisa Stansfield, Junior Reid, and Yazz, but their vision was clearly much broader than the scope of the major-label music machine, so they established Ninja Tune in order to maintain creative freedom. With releases from Coldcut and related projects like DJ Food, as well as associated artists such as Hex, Ninja Tune played a major role in popularizing trip-hop and instrumental hip-hop, and the taste-making label gradually encompassed a wide variety of other genres, from ragga to post-punk. Coldcut released mix CDs like 1995's Journeys by DJ: 70 Minutes of Madness which reflected the eclectic nature of their Solid Steel radio shows and club sets. They were early adaptors of the enhanced CD format (see 1997's Let Us Play!), they've integrated live video sampling into their performances since the '90s, and they've developed innovative audio-visual manipulation programs and apps. They accompanied 2006's Sound Mirrors with a massive audiovisual world tour. Later projects have included the 2017 On-U Sound collaboration Outside the Echo Chamber and the 2021 ambient charity compilation @0.

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