Philippines record label Tarsier Records has released the single ‘Rise’, a collaboration between six artists: Malaysia’s Zee Avi, Filipino pop stars Inigo Pascual and Sam Concepcion, Grammy award-winning rapper Eric Bellinger, Tarsier founder and producer Moophs, and songwriter Vince Nantes.
The tune is a “cross-cultural message of hope, a chant to rise above the tides of today and to keep the faith at the dawn of a new world that we’ll face together,” Tarsier Records said in a press release.
Per the press release, two music videos will be released for ‘RISE’. The first will take the form of an animated video in which the artists will be portrayed as superheroes to face “the 2020 monster”. The second will be a “montage of current events with messages of hope from influencers worldwide”.
Check out the lyric video for ‘RISE’ below.
In a virtual press conference on Thursday (September 17), Zee Avi called ‘Rise’ “definitely one of the highlights of my path as a musician”. She added, “As a songwriter myself, I am in love with the lyrics, because it makes you question a sense of hopefulness in these trying times.”
Nantes, whose songwriting credits include the BTS song ‘Black Swan’, said: “Even though I am just a small part of a very big world, I believe everyone needs a little bit of light during some dark times. I wanted to give people something they can enjoy, yet emotionally connect to and believe in.”
Nantes also revealed in the conference that the song’s creation, from its conception to its completion, took six months, given that the artists had to work around each others’ schedules remotely from different parts of the world.
Moophs’ first draft of ‘Rise’ dates back to 2017, when he created a house beat that was never used. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the world went into quarantine, Moophs dusted off the old beat and reworked it before sending it to Nantes.
He added, “This song is my answer to 2020. If we look past borders, politics, and skin colour and resolve not to be divided, we can overcome anything this year throws at us.”