The origins of Black Sheep lie in Julian Cope's 2008 solo albumBlack Sheep, for which he assembled a varied group of contributing musicians both from his longstanding talent pool and from more recent associates. Black Sheep was a predominantly acoustic project, dominated by Cope's vocals and Mellotron playing and by varied contributions mainly played on acoustic guitars and large bass drums. Besides Cope, the album featured long-term Cope sidemen Patrick "Holy" McGrail and Doggen, plus acoustic guitarists/singers/drum beaters Michael O'Sullivan and Ady "Acoustika" Fletcher. The album also credited a "blasphemous movie division" run by "Big Nige", and a "law council" featuring McGrail, Big Nige, and "Vybik Jon". On 27 October 2008 Cope and various Black Sheep related musicians began the "Joe Strummer Memorial Busking Tour", a 3-day-long busking tour of UK cultural centres as defined by Cope. These included several locations in London, the Eddie Cochran memorial in Chippenham, the site of the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, the King's Standing and Swanborough Tump barrows and Carl Jung's statue in Liverpool. Working on Black Sheep both as an album and as a counter-cultural touring event inspired Cope to extend the concept to a full band. Acoustika, O’Sullivan and McGrail remained on board, while Vybik Jon and Big Nige stepped up as additional performers. Also added were several new recruits - drummer Antony Hodgkinson, Christophe F., "Fat Paul" Horlick, Adam "Randy Apostle" Whittaker, and the more obscure "Hebbs" and "Common Era". All of these members played on the Black Sheep debut double albumKiss My Sweet Apocalypse, released in 2009. Rather than being just another Cope vehicle, it became clear that Black Sheep was considered a collective effort on the evidence of the album's second half, which featured tracks led by individual group members. The group recorded several BBC sessions which were released the same year on Black Sheep at the BBC. Musically, this featured the same lineup as the debut album bar Whitaker and Hebbs, and with the addition of the group's engineer on grand piano and vocals plus additional vocalist Eddi Fiegel. Attention to the sleevenotes of the albums illustrated Black Sheep's increasingly collective approach – Fiegel also served as one of the group's photographers, while the musically absent Hebbs had contributed a painting. Other contributors to Black Sheep have included Cope's wife Dorian Cope, performing under the pseudonym of "Mother of the Revolution". The collective approach has also allowed for an increasing number of releases foregrounding individual group members and associates. Christophe F. stepped to the fore on 2009's Heathen Frontiers in Sound which he predominantly wrote while backed by the group. Black Sheep have also backed David Wrench on his 2010 album Spades, Hoes, Plows.
