The band was formed by musician
Ilya Prusikin and videomaker Alina Pasok and made their debut on 1 April
2013, releasing their first video "Every Day I'm Drinking". They made their first public appearance on 2 July 2013 at the club A2, opening for
Die Antwoord. On 19 December 2015, the band released their second album,
Funeral Rave. It was 8th on the Russian
iTunes chart for the 52nd week of 2015. On 21 May 2016, videos for the songs "Give Me Your Money" and "Big Dick" received a prize at the
Berlin Music Video Awards 2016. "Big Dick" won Most Trashy, and "Give Me Your Money" won third place for Best Performer. "Big Dick", with over 70 million views, is full of
sexual imagery and overtones. "We just want to show people that they own their lives. Countries and governments are not as important as they think, a person can deal with what he wants", said frontman Ilya Prusikin on the purpose of the band in an interview with
Noisey. The band has its own label "Little Big Family", which includes Little Big (2016–present),
The Hatters (2016–present),
Tatarka (2016–present), (2017–present), and (2018–present). In April 2018, Olympia Ivleva decided to leave the band. Later that year, she stated her "burnout after five years of doing the same job", combined with intention to start her own non-musical businesses (chocolate paste and lingerie), were the reasons behind her exit. Little Big achieved viral success with the release of the video for "
Skibidi" on 5 October 2018. The video features a dance that became popular when others tried to imitate it as part of the "Skibidi Challenge". Little Big took the first prize in the Most Trashy category at the 2018
Berlin Music Video Awards for their music video
Lolly Bomb, and their music video
Skibidi won the first place in the Best Concept category in the festival's 2019 edition. Their "Skibidi" song would be part of the music used in the
Skibidi Toilet cultural phenomenon, which later led to the word "skibidi" being added to the Cambridge dictionary. In March 2020, Little Big were announced as
Russia's entry for the
Eurovision Song Contest 2020, where they would have performed "
Uno". The music video for the song, released at the same time, features
Yuri Muzychenko from
The Hatters and Florida Chanturia from
Leningrad, both of whom were to join the band on stage during the contest. However, on 18 March 2020, the event was cancelled due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the band won the Most Trashy category with their video
Go Bananas at the
Berlin Music Video Awards. The same year, they also placed third for the Best Music Video. In October 2020, Little Big's cover version of "
Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" was used over both the trailer and the closing credits of
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. On 30 December 2020, the group performed the song "Mamma Maria" on the
Evening Urgant New Year's special,
Ciao, 2020!, under the name 'Piccolo Grandi'. On 1 March 2021, Little Big announced on Instagram that founding member Anna Kast had died. On 8 March 2021, Little Big released a new single, "Sex Machine," along with a video which referenced the video to "Uno" the year prior. However, they subsequently posted on Instagram, "We are not going to
Eurovision 2021. We think that Russia has many talented and unique artists, each one of them deserves the chance to be seen out there." Little Big was nominated for Best Art Director with their music video
S*ck My D*ck 2020 at the
Berlin Music Video Awards 2021. On 24 November 2021, Little Big released the video "“LITTLE BIG NFT SURPRISEN EGG” episode 1"
(sic) to announce that the band was making
NFTs. On 1 December 2021, people could buy 1 of 1000 unique surprise eggs which would hatch a week later, revealing one of the designs. Prusikin stated that they were inspired by Kinder Surprise Eggs, which are popular in Russia. Following the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the two leaders of the band, Prusikin and Tayurskaya, relocated to
Los Angeles,
California on 2 March of that same year. They stated that they were on a government
blacklist, and aren't allowed to perform any shows in Russia. When asked about a possible return to Russia, they stated that it will be possible "when
Putin leaves". On 24 June, the band released the single "
Generation Cancellation", which carries a pacifist, anti-war message, characterizing it as a war of
war profiteering old men, a chess game with soldiers as
chess pieces to be sacrificed at will, with gloomy consequences on younger generations. After the release of the song, they condemned the actions of the Russian government and Russian war propaganda. However, the song was regarded by some Ukrainians as rather anti-American and anti-West rather than anti-Russian. A protest by Ukrainian activists caused their show in
Kraków, that was supposed to take place 12 November, to be cancelled. In Russia, they were accused of being "traitors" by the government-controlled media. Prusikin was designated in Russia as a "
foreign agent". The band planned to release a fifth studio album in 2022, but did not end up doing so. Prusikin noted that "We are a band that likes to work in so many styles: pop, rave, punk and hardcore. And (now) we embody our ambition and love for different genres in the (new) album. It will be different". == Musical style ==