America's hottest dance label, N-Soul Records, run by Scott Blackwell, have just released an album of new British dance artists. It will be launched at the Cross Rhythms SW's Sanctified Dance Party where many of the artists on the CD will be performing their tracks at the festival. Tony Cummings spoke to four of these underground dance gospellers.

Minds Of Men
Minds Of Men

MINDS OF MEN

Ensconced in their Birmingham studio, Minds Of Men are a veritable sanctified dance hit factory. Three songwriter producers Kevin Edwards, Paul Birtles and Piers Sanderson, together with singer Tracey Riggan have in the last year produced a veritable stream of dance material house, techno, trance even balleric (under one of their non de plumes Mistral). Some of their tracks have already been released on 12 inch into the mainstream market by dance independent Global Grooves and now Minds Of Men have been signed to East West for a three single deal. On 'Cross Rhythms', Minds Of Men come in several different personas (they are also Scientists Of Sound, Born Twice and, as already mentioned, the marvellous balleric creation Mistral). MOM are thrilled to be major contributors to the 'Cross Rhythms' album. Said Kevin Edwards, "Neither Paul or Piers are Christians but they're both very sympathetic to the Christian faith. As it turns out all of our songs, even those intended for the mainstream secular market, have a very strong life-affirming message and some of them are specifically gospel - 'Higher Power' for instance, which is a lyric I wrote to express my feelings about life. I wrote it after watching a TV programme about the terrible things happening in Africa. Suddenly I started thinking, if only they could see there's a higher power, the Lord, over them. And suddenly had the whole first verse."

The key voice of the bulk of Minds Of Men creations is Tracey Riggan whom long-in-the-tooth readers will recognise as the singer who once had a good but under-promoted album 'Friends' out on Word. Since then Tracey, who is also a member of popular gospel group Divine, has gone on to do numerous sessions with a stream of mainstream dance and R&B artists. But it's gospel and particularly sanctified dance, which has always been close to Tracey's heart. "The great thing about gospel dance," commented Tracey, "is that it's taking the message of Jesus to young people where they are - in the clubs. Many of these people wouldn't think of coming to church. But they need to hear the gospel message. Records like the ones Minds Of Men make have the potential to reach those people."

The musician in the production team is Paul Birtles, a keyboard whiz who after playing R&B with various bands has found his niche in the rarified world of dance. "We start with an idea of the riffs we want in. Then as the riffs start sitting together there really is a buzz," he remarked.

A key figure of the Minds Of Men strategy to take wholesome messages with SERIOUS beats to the nightclubbers is Piers Sanderson for Piers is part-owner of one of Birmingham's top dance record shops Global Grooves and a connoisseur of what fills a dance floor in the quickly changing world of dance. "I bring to Minds Of Men the contemporary dance knowledge. I know from promoting a nightclub and working day to day in dance music what people in the clubs are buying, what really fills the dancefloor. And of course what is hitting in the club underground now is in the pop mainstream six months to a year later."

Minds Of Men have had written into their East West contract an exclusion allowing them to continue to work in the gospel dance arena. They are hoping to soon start work on a dance concept album highlighting the very best vocal talent in Britain's black churches. Said Kevin Edwards, "There are great voices in the churches. We'll be giving them the vehicle to reach contemporary youth-dance."

Soul Freedom
Soul Freedom

SOUL FREEDOM

One of the catchiest tracks on the 'Cross Rhythms' compilation is "I Believe In You" by Soul Freedom, a duo from Orpington consisting of Lynda Goddard and Chris Adkins. Lynda is thrilled about the inclusion of the track, produced by the World Wide Message Tribe's Zarc Porter, but ruefully admits the song, though a mainstay of the duo's set is by no means as hard dance as they go. "We've got things in our set now, particularly some stuff we've done with Kevin Pine, whose a producer with Kiss FM and does a lot of club mixes, which are much harder. But 'I Believe In You' is just one of those songs that everybody seems to like."

Soul Freedom began three years ago after the two girls met for the first time in Lynda Goddard's kitchen. "I'd recently got saved and somebody gave a prophetic word about my need to meet up with Chris, even though they had no idea about our similar interests. At that first meeting we wrote a song together and we just took it from there. I was very aware that we needed to make music young people were listening to."

A pivotal time for Soul Freedom was the '93 Cross Rhythms festival. "We'd had a very clear word from the Lord that we had to go to the festival but when we got there we were wandering around in the rain dressed in lycra wondering why we were there. But then we met Zarc Porter there and he invited us to come up and see the World Wide Message Tribe ministry in Manchester. And going there really opened up our eyes."

Visits to Zarc Porter's Perfect Music studio resulted in backing tracks being laid down and eventually a low budget album 'To Be Free' (which the naughty ladies DIDN'T send to Cross Rhythms for review). The Tribe also trained and envisioned the duo to get involved in schools work. There is now an eight member multi-denominational team Vision For Youth based in Orpington that is reaching out into the schools. Typical outreach consists of a week's RE lessons, a taster concert on the Thursday and a full concert on the Friday. Soul Freedom have already seen fruit. "We had a concert when 30 kids came forward and over 10 are now established in churches. We also saw the Christian kids in the school come on fire. We've seen some astonishing things; kids crying in the classroom because they've been told that God values them and thinks they're the business. That's an immense thing to some kids."

Doors are opening left and right for the talented duo. They've met David and Carrie Grant, who are very enthusiastic about what they're doing; they've been doing some songwriting with Paul Field and they've played the Big Top Greenbelt and the DMi Gospel Awards. But as the doors are opening there are plenty of opportunities to share about their faith. Says Lynda, "It's just great to meet people and talk about what Jesus is doing in our lives."

The Flood
The Flood

THE FLOOD

"Hard bag" is how deejay and producer The Flood jokingly describes the astonishing and monumental 8-minute acid/pop/house/trance aural experience entitled "Morning Time" on 'Cross Rhythms'. Its awesome sweep is beyond even the pigeonholing powers of dance culture. Suffice to say that it uses as its lyrical base a sermonette delivered by the Rev Jessie Jackson (sampled from Aretha Franklin's live gospel album) and is already creating waves of interest from those privileged to hear it.