Jonas Blue wants to focus on releasing singles rather than albums and the new music he has been writing is influenced by "favela funk".
The 29-year-old DJ dropped his debut album ‘Blue’ last November but he’s in no hurry to bring out a follow-up LP and instead wants to treat his fans to a steady stream of fresh tracks.
Jonas wants to stay on top of the newest musical genres and at the moment he is working on creating tunes that have the hallmarks of favela funk – a style that originated in Rio de Janeiro and is derived from Miami bass and gangsta rap.
Speaking exclusively to BANG Showbiz, he said: "My focus at the moment is to release singles, I think it’s such a singles driven market and my fans want to consume music as quickly as possible. The thing about doing an album, although it gives you a different perspective on music you can create, is that my fans want new music as soon as possible and be on to the next music as soon as possible so I think singles are the best way to do that. For me it’s about capturing what’s going on musically at the moment as well. I travel around the world so much and hear so many different genres being created, like in Brazil most people don’t even know they have favela funk and that’s a huge part of what’s being put into my music at the moment. Trying to capture all these influences and jump on them is key for me."
Jonas – whose real name is Guy Robin – doesn’t have a stockpile of tracks saved on his computer as he releases his songs as he records them.
He added: "A lot of the stuff I make I just release, there’s not like a lot of songs on my hard drive I try and put as much out there as possible but I’ve always got stuff I’m working on."
Jonas recorded his latest single ‘Ritual’ with Tiesto and Rita Ora and when he finished writing it he knew instantly that the ‘Anywhere’ singer would be the perfect person to provide the vocals.
Explaining how the three-way collaboration happened, he said: "Basically I got together with Rita because I wrote a song and I always thought of her singing it, she was always the first person I had in mind for ‘Ritual’ … Then it got put on hold for a little bit but then I met Tiesto at the famous Miami nightclub LIV, I was performing there and Tiesto came in to say hi. I just said to him, ‘Do you want to work together on something?’ And he was like, ‘What have you got?’ And I said, ‘I’ve got this amazing song called ‘Ritual’ and it would be amazing if we could get Rita on it.’ So I sent the track over and he loved it and here we are, and it looks like it’s going to be a big summer tune for all of us.
"When I’m writing a song I always try and think of the whole story so I’m always thinking about the music video and who the performer is going to be or whether it’s going to be a collaboration with another DJ, I’m always thinking 10 steps ahead when I’m writing a song."
‘Ritual’ by Tiesto, Jonas Blue and Rita Ora is available now.
Jonas Blue’s new music influenced by ‘favela funk’
