Tony Cummings reports on the latest British dance music phenomenon DANCE4DADDY

Dance4Daddy with Jacy Mai

British urban gospel is one of the most thriving parts of the UK's Christian music scene and few acts have attracted more attention than the groundbreaking collective known as Dance4Daddy. Their debut single "Dancing For Daddy" covered all the club music bases (soulful house, deep house, tech house) while the followup "Another Day" came in a staggering 13 remix package and featuring as it did the extraordinary voice of Jacy Mai (winner of BBC Masterclass with R&B superstar Usher) it's been a track heavily featured across clubland and on the hipper radio shows. So who precisely are Dance4Daddy?

Dance4Daddy are Londoners Akin O'Boye (who has written for Liberty X and several other acts), Mike O'Sullivan (sometimes known as Moscomusic) and Charles. Akin explained recently to Mike Rimmer how Dance4Daddy came together. "The way that two of us, from Dance4Daddy, met was with a project that we work on called Eternal Sunshine. We did a song called 'Beautify Me' which did quite well, but we felt it wasn't gospel enough and we wanted to move it one step further. We're still doing Eternal Sunshine. We've got a song coming out, incidentally, called 'Because Of You'. Eternal Sunshine is signed to a gospel label in Italy called Gotta Keep Faith. They control what happens with Eternal Sunshine music. Dance4Daddy is a label that is UK-based. It is focused on long term releases of uplifting, dance floor gospel music."

There is serious spiritual intent behind the formation of Dance4Daddy. Said Akin, "It was the determination that we didn't come together just to have another club group or to have music out that people could only dance to. There was a really strong message about why God has put us together, why he's inspired us to like a certain type of music and to fill a gap. We really strongly wanted to pursue that and not be ashamed to talk about faith and gospel. We wanted something that we could have more control over - when you're signed to a label, they can still control how you arrive and how they put the music out. We thought, 'Let's do Dance4Daddy'. Dance4Daddy means dance for God, that's where it comes from."

Both the download releases, particularly "Another Day", have been successful. "We went to number seven in the national dance chart. People accepted 'Another Day' as a hot dance track but we were quite clear about keeping our faith strong in the lyrics. We achieved what we wanted in terms of access to the clubs without compromising what we wanted to do with the message."

There has been a long time tradition in club music for gospel house but in the past the genre has been almost exclusively American. Said Akin, "What we're trying to do with Dance4Daddy is build something that is UK-based but more long-term. We're not thinking about just one or two songs, but we're talking about building a brand that, over years, people will learn to appreciate what we're trying to do with the message. Next year we're putting out an album based around the singles we've already got out. As well as 'Another Day' and 'Dancing For Daddy' we also have 'Make It Happen'. We've got two other songs coming out. Then we will release an album compiled from the best mixes of each of the singles and a couple of new songs."