Jonas Blue’s ‘Rise’ Joins The Spotify Billions Club

Jonas Blue’s stream counts continue to rise. “Rise,” the British DJ and producer’s 2018 collaboration with Jack & Jack, has joined the Spotify Billions Club, meaning the song has surpassed a billion streams on the platform. It’s Blue’s fourth song to achieve that milestone following “Fast Car,” “Perfect Strangers,” and “Mama.”

“Rise” is an anthem of resilience. “We’re gonna ri-ri-ri-ri-rise ’til we fall/ They say we got no, no, no, no future at all,” goes the chorus. “They wanna ke-ke-keep us out, can’t hold us down anymore/ We’re gonna ri-ri-ri-ri-rise ’til we fall.” The track came together at the last minute when Blue heard a radio interview with Jack Edward Johnson and Jack Gilinsky, the Omaha pop-rap duo known as Jack & Jack.

“I had my single ready to go, and it was all planned, everything was all ready,” Blue told the Huffington Post. “and then I went to LA in April, and I was listening to [radio presenter] Jojo Wright, and he was interviewing these guys, Jack & Jack, who if I’m honest I’d never heard of before. But I was listening to them on the radio, very much inspired by what they were talking about.” Retelling the story to Billboard Radio China, Blue explained, “They talked about how millennials are rising and chasing their dreams against headwinds, and immediately, some ideas come to my mind.”

After Blue wrote “Rise” with Ed Drewett and Samuel Roman, aka Romans, it was time to approach Jack & Jack about being a part of it. “I sent it to the guys, and I was like, ‘I wrote this song based on what you were talking about in that interview, would you be up for singing it?’” Blue told HuffPo. “It was around the weekend of Coachella and they were like, ‘sure’, and I got the vocals back from them and I was like, ‘Oh my god, scrap the song I already had planned, this has to be my next single’. And we went with ‘Rise’ about a week before it got released. And I think it was the best song that I could have picked.”

The influence was mutual. Jack & Jack later told Billboard their experience working with Blue on “Rise” significantly impacted their approach to future music. “It was an amazing experience to show that if you target just the mainstream, you can affect so many people in a positive way,” Gilinsky said. “We didn’t want to stray too far away from that kind of sound.”