Dan I

Who was Dan I?

Dan I was a British disco musician, signed to Island Records, who had a Top 30 hit in the UK Singles Chart in 1979 with a single called "Monkey Chop". He originated from Jamaica, and Trevor Horn was the uncredited record producer of "Monkey Chop". Without any further chart success, Dan I remains listed as a one-hit wonder.

His stage name derived from his interest in numerology, meaning "number one". In the early 1970s he was asked by George Clinton to join his band Funkadelic, but he declined, believing he was too young. During the 1970s he worked with Cat Stevens, Andy Fraser, and Joe Jammer, and led his own club band, D-Dancer. D-Dancer split up in 1976, after which Dan-I spent a year in Nigeria before embarking on a solo career, signing with Island Records after being introduced by Linton Kwesi Johnson, and having a major hit with "Monkey Chop", which he described as "music for the new optimism". He moved to Los Angeles, California in the mid-1980s, where he recorded several demos. He then moved to South Africa before returning to London. He died of unspecified causes in May 2006.