When someone mentions a dance artist, the immediate impression is a female diva belting over house beats. So when a male artist steps up, they have to work twice as hard. Starting with his debut "Let's Get It On," Lucas Prata has been working his way through the dance world creating energetic dance pop confections that have been embraced by dance radio.

DJ Ron Slomowicz: Congratulations on the release of your album.


Looking at the cover photo, I wonder if I should call you Super Prata?
Lucas Prata: Super Prata, no. There's a couple of different meanings behind that. One is knowing that I work in the industry. By day I'm a radio promotion guy and by night and weekend, I'm coming out of a phone booth and putting my cape on.

RS: You're playing all the different roles.
Lucas Prata: I do wear a bunch of hats and industry-wise, that's what that means. Then, for the fans, it's more about saving dance music and being one of the people to bring it back to the forefront of the mainstream. That's my way of showing 'let's make this happen, let's make dance music mainstream again.'

RS: That's one of the many things I like about you, you're not afraid of being commercial and making hooky, popular dance music.
Lucas Prata: That goes all the way back to being a huge fan of pop music from The New Kids on the Block through the boy band era, I've opened up for N'sync, Britney, O'town and Backstreet Boys ? we had the same record agent for many years.

So I was always part of that circle of groups and shows and it's always been the kind of music that I've written - very melodic and poppy, people like to say a lot of bubblegum music. I put some dance beats behind it and keep the melody going.

RS: So do you write most of your songs?
Lucas Prata: Pretty much, it's not a hundred percent but I'd say about eighty percent of what I do is all written by myself.

RS: Because I'm thinking about that catchy "yeah, yeah, yeah" chant in "And She Said" and I'm just wondering, how did that come to you and did you know the first time you heard it that it would make become such a big chat.
Lucas Prata: Valentin and I were in the studio working on it and it just kind of came out of nowhere. Together we just looked at each other and it was 'and she said yeah yeah yeah'. Then I answered back and then he answered back, and I was like oh-oh, I think that's something.

RS: Cool. Who's the hot chick in that video?
Lucas Prata: That would be CJ Gibson. She is a bikini supermodel based out of Tampa, Florida. She's a good friend of mine and I've always wanted to have her in my video. It just happened that the timing was right. She was not somewhere in some exotic part of the world shooting because she's constantly photographed and she's done like six to seven different covers this past year alone for fitness. She ended up doing it and it was great. We had a lot of fun when we shot the video in Boston.

RS: Speaking of hot chicks, your duet with Reina "Love of My Life" seems to be kicking in. How did that come about?
Lucas Prata: I knew I wanted to do a duet on this album, I just didn't know with who. I was out in Orlando working on a song written by Janice Robinson and Jack Eliot. I was in Jack's studio and asked how they would feel about writing a duet for Reina and I since they had just done "If I Close My Eyes. I put two and two together and it just made so much sense. Like if I'm doing a solo record with you and she did a solo record with you, why don't you guys write us a duet? Thy knocked it out really quickly and they called me up about two to three weeks later and they were like you've got to listen to this song we just sent you on your eMail, it's just perfect for you and Reina. That's how we came about it and we both feel in love with it instantly.

RS: It seems like if there are two artists that really are the face of current US commercial dance music, it is you and Reina, so putting the two of you together is almost a no-brainer.
Lucas Prata: When I thought of it, it kind of rang the bell in my head, but it's one thing to think about it and it's another thing to go ahead and make it happen.

RS: Is there any chance of a video for the song?
Lucas Prata: We'll see, though it's, dance music is like, you know, as we all know, w e're trying do as much as we can with it and nobody really does videos for dance music. I did the video for "And She Said" on my own dime because I knew that the song needed a face to it. It needed something so people could relate to it whether it be CJ or me, I knew that something had to be done as far as a video. So I'm hoping that the new record gets big enough where Ultra will go ahead and put up the money for a video, I think it would be great.