It’s been a fantastic year for Jonas Blue, after the British producer released two huge hits in the form of ‘Fast Car ft Dakota’ and ‘Perfect Strangers ft JP Cooper‘, selling over three million singles across the globe for the former. Both of these are listed in ‘Nexus Top 150 Dance Chart’ released on the August 1st.

Speaking to idolator.com, Jonas Blue talks of his tropical house cover of Tracy Chapman’s ‘Fast Car’.

How did you get the idea to update “Fast Car”?

It was my mom’s favorite song when I was younger. She always played it on long car journeys and it was a big song on the radio when I was a kid. It always stuck with me because it’s such a beautiful song and as I got older and became a producer — I never forgot about the song. I worked in some record shops where people tried to remix the original and it never quite worked. I wanted to play it within my DJ set. The original just wouldn’t work, so I always knew I wanted to remake it.

I was scared because it’s such a legendary song. It’s like trying to cover The Beatles. You don’t touch it unless you know you’re gonna do it justice. It took me a long time to build up the courage to do it. Last August, I was out with friends and it just popped into my head. I not only came up with the arrangement I wanted, I came up with all the sounds I wanted to use, which was great because I never experienced that before. It was just in my gut. I remember going into the studio and I pretty much had the instrumental done in one night. The next step was finding the singer.

How did you find Dakota?

My version of “Fast Car” is in the same key as the original. To me that is where all the emotion lies. The problem was finding a singer who can sing as low as Tracy Chapman. I thought about changing the key, but it didn’t work. I put it to the side for a couple of weeks. Anyway, I was at a pub having a beer and I heard this voice from downstairs. It was Dakota, who we’d never met before. She was doing an acoustic set and I just said to my manager that she would be perfect for “Fast Car.” I could hear it in my head. I could hear her on my version.

I went up to her at the end of her set and told her about the song. She was like, “I’m not sure. I’ve never recorded dance music before, I’m not sure how I’d sound on it.” I persuaded her to give it a try and then we went into the studio the very next day. She recorded all the vocals and it was perfect.

Will we get another single over the summer or is that being too greedy?

I’d love to release another one this summer, but “Fast Car” took about four or five months to really build and for everyone to know about. It’s the same kind of thing with “Perfect Strangers,” it takes time to get out there and hopefully have the big impact that “Fast Car” had. I’ll definitely have another single out before the end of the year. Definitely.

Watch Jonas Blue’s ‘Fast Car’ featuring Dakota –