Big Data is a “paranoid electronic project” from musician and producer Alan Wilkis. The project started as Wilkis was working with Joywave on a song that would later become “Dangerous”. Wilkis decided on the subject matter of the project following a conversation with a friend from college that worked in data science. In an interview with GroundSounds Wilkis explained

I had started working with a dude named Dan Armbruster from the band Joywave in the summer of 2012, and really just kinda sketching ideas out, and I didn’t really have a name for a project yet. So I wasn’t thinking about those themes yet, I was just kinda getting started. And then, I went to my friends wedding, and he is an actual big data, like, data scientist. He calls himself a data scientist. He’s really really freakishly smart. He was telling me about his career and he kept talking about big data, and it wasn’t a term you saw everywhere yet. It was just kind of strictly for nerds. But I had a feeling that it would be increasingly more everywhere. And I thought it was cool as a name, and it was cool to think about. So that’s sort of how it started.

One of Wilkis’s major inspirations for the project was the fact he attended Harvard at the time Facebook was founded, and was the 4,132nd person to join the site. Facebook is mentioned in multiple Big Data songs, including “Dangerous” and “The Business of Emotion”.

In describing his creative process, Wilkis explained to GroundSounds

I’ve always loved collaborating with different singers and rappers. I like sort of making the instrumental stuff and then working on vocal parts with other people.

The project has largely been a success. The hit collaboration with Joywave, “Dangerous”, peaked at #1 on the Billboard alternative charts. Their song “The Business of Emotion” reached #33 on the Billboard alternative charts.