Amine Edge & DANCE

When school ended, both reluctantly moved on to jobs in the real world while dreaming of careers in music. Amine worked as a handyman while Laurent was stuck working in his father's tobacconist. As is often the case when creative minds are restrained during the nine to five, they threw themselves into music in their off-hours. And as they had little money to play with, like the generation of producers before them, they quickly found that sampling provided a way to make good music without having to splash out. As Amine explains, "House music is music from the ghetto. In the beginning, Todd Terry was using samples from Africa Bambaataa and people like that".

While DANCE has more of a grounding in hip hop (including production credits for French rap super-stars, IAM), it was the likes of Todd Terry and the other early house pioneers who inspired Amine Edge. And as the CUFF label and the G-house sound have helped raise their profile, many of these names in turn have been tuning in to the sounds of Amine Edge & DANCE. One such figure is the original house gangster, DJ Sneak, who invited them to play at his Birthday Beats party back in 2013 before collaborating with them last year on 'Real Girls Fall, Fake Girls Talk'.

"Amine Edge and DANCE are fans of American culture, which music is a huge part of," Sneak tells Mixmag. "Our collaboration came very easy. I like their raw sense in music and the gangster love they've got inside. Soon they will graduate to full 'G' status". Though Sneak's trademark patter may come across as tongue-in-cheek, G-house is fast becoming a serious force. In many ways it's the product of two trends that have shaped dance music since its re-emergence as a commercial force in the past decade: stripped-back house music and booty-shaking bass. There are parallels, too, to be drawn with the breaks scene of the early 00s: the unashamed sense of fun, the danceability and, of course, the heavy use of hip hop samples that give the genre huge dancefloor appeal. The use of sampling is something that has clearly been important to the duo over the years, with DANCE spending much of his time trawling the annals of hip hop for vocal snippets to use in their tracks.

While sampling has provided a bedrock for the Amine Edge & DANCE sound, now that they have more resources – not to mention the additional currency of a skyrocketing profile – the duo plan to start working with current rappers, and Amine is ambitious in his choice of collaborators. "I don't know... Drake, Travi$ Scott, all the big MCs," he says. They're currently in talks with Canadian duo Majid Jordan of Drake's OVO Sound label.

It's surely only a matter of time before these artists come knocking, pulled in by the same forces that attracted the dance contingent to see the guys perform at their 'exhausting', 20-date Sankeys residency in Ibiza last year. Among the elite was MK, who turned up unannounced one night. The duo showed their respect by dropping his 'Look Right Through' remix. An already-animated DANCE momentarily basks in the memory. "It was a big, big moment for us," he says. "We were like 'Wow!'". Ever indebted to the house legends, Amine was more in awe when Duane Harden, vocalist on Armin van Helden's smash, 'You Don't Know Me', popped by. He sums up the overall experience matter-of-factly: "Ibiza is the biggest party in the world. And we made it".

Ever the pragmatist, Amine doesn't feel the need to question their success in the country. "We don't know why, but, you know, we'll take it!"

This year, both on the festival circuit and in their careers as a whole, their simple, overarching aim is to be bigger and better than last year. They'll be releasing more sample-free music, collaborating with other artists and really pushing the streaming side of their output. Amine sees this as the "future of music", and the guys have hung their hats on the forthcoming iTunes streaming platform, not to mention SoundCloud, on which they post all of their sets for their 200,000-strong followers. It's a practice that sets them apart from some contemporaries and demonstrates how much hard work they put in to all their shows. On this point, cool-headed Amine has to hold back from unleashing an uncharacteristic barb. "Ninety-nine per cent of DJs don't do it because they play the same set for three months, but we're different every time," he says. "I don't want to piss off any other DJs though… so I'd better shut the fuck up". That said, they do play their cards close to their chest as far as their tracklists go. "It has to be secret. I don't want people to know all the tracks and then play the same ones as us," DANCE says. "We have to be exclusive all the time".

While their own act is naturally at the forefront of their minds, the progress of their label-mates at CUFF is never far behind. Both are at their most engaged in the role of brand ambassadors. Among the artists looking to make a name for themselves this year are duo Maximono, who, like Amine and Laurent before them, may be destined to lead a genre of their own. "They have an EP of unique music coming out," Amine explains. "We call it 'shakin' house'. It's like a mixture of bass and jungle/broken beat. They're the only ones making it." He's also excited about Tekla, who's adding his own twist to tech-house. Though these sounds may contrast with one another – not to mention the G-house that has made AE&D's name – it's the artists' joint goal of bending existing parameters that unites them on the label, something that has undoubtedly played a key part in Amine Edge & DANCE's own success.

With trademark gold gangster chains adorning their necks, Amine Edge & DANCE step up to take over from Medeew and Chicks Luv Us. As the crowd cheer their arrival, DANCE is, as ever, keen to deflect the applause on to his CUFF brothers, who, as label manager Max had promised, have done far more than just warm up the crowd for the night's headliners. Within minutes the vibe has taken a sleazy turn, the early-evening shufflers overwhelmed by bodies jostling for space near the DJ booth. Intermittent shouts of "Allez!" (go on!) ring out from the crowd. In stark contrast to their demeanour backstage, the two DJs deliver their set with laser-like focus – though DANCE in particular can't help but be moved by the basslines fuelling the raucous shaking and stomping on the dancefloor. Low, chugging frequencies contort many of the crowd's expressions into the universal screwface of appreciation, including a pair of lads proudly wearing 'I'm A House Gangster' T-shirts.

As they promised, much of the set is made up of unreleased tracks, only vaguely identifiable by their samples. One such track, featuring the lyric "Porn star, big booties" from Travi$ Scott's 'Mamacita', has the crowd rapt; the pitched-up, smutty vocal capturing the essence of G-house in one five-second loop. It's a lesson in how to whip up a crowd: harnessing that adrenaline rush of familiarity and then repackaging it for maximum dancefloor appeal. That said, AE&D are well aware of the devastating effect the well-timed drop of a back-catalogue classic can have. The brooding bass of 2013's 'Rack City Bitch' has the packed crowd edging further towards the DJ booth, where CUFF friends and family lap up the sounds away from the crush below.

With a sell-out crowd of 2,600 making it here tonight, there's no doubt that CUFF and its leading men have brought back some of the unashamed fun that helped define dance music in the early days. It's still early days for Amine Edge & DANCE, too, but French duos have a history of putting their own unique dancefloor twist on musical genres– Daft Punk with disco, Justice with rock. Don't bet against these two hitting the same heights.