Sean Paul‘s 2016 song No Lie with English singer Dua Lipa surpassed 1 billion plays on Spotify on Friday (October 6).
This marks his first billion-play track as a lead artist on Spotify, and the fifth Jamaican-led song overall to hit this milestone on the platform.
Paul told DancehallMag that he’s humbled by the career achievement. “I’ve always tried to emulate the greats in the genre. We all learn from our elders. So all I can say is thank you to them for showing me the way. And thanks to the fans, it is really humbling,” he said.
Clean Bandit’s Rockabye (2018), on which he was featured alongside Anne-Marie, is currently at 1.4 billion plays on Spotify, while his solo hits Temperature (2005) and Get Busy (2002) are at 712 million and 449 million plays, respectively.
No Lie‘s success extends beyond Spotify. In April 2022, the music video, directed by Tim Nackashi, surpassed one billion YouTube views. In February of that year, it was certified double platinum in the United Kingdom, commemorating sales and streams exceeding 1,200,000 units in the country.
It is also Sean Paul’s longest-running single on the UK Singles chart, where it has spent 30 weeks, peaking at No. 11. No Lie reached No. 184 on the Billboard Global 200 chart and No. 113 on the Billboard Global Excl. US chart.
“Feels good to know that you can do songs, and they just grow and grow and grow,” he had noted. “Cause when [No Lie] first came out, that was a dope song. Nuff people loved it. It went on a lot of likkle streaming vibes, and it just kept going. So awesome!”
Sean Paul at the 2023 Billboard Latin Music Awards on October 5, 2023, in Coral Gables, Florida.
Dua Lipa, who Paul said was relatively unknown when the song was recorded, has now seen nine of her tracks reach this streaming milestone.
He had praised the Don’t Start Now singer, emphasizing how gracious she was to work on No Lie. “Big up, Dua Lipa, who was so gracious when she did the tune with me. She wasn’t as big as she is now, so I’m proud to feel like I was ahead of [the] curve,” he said.
Produced by Sermstyle and Phillip Kembo, No Lie was the lead single on Sean Paul’s EP Mad Love The Prequel, released in 2018 via SPJ Productions Ltd in partnership with Island Records.
It was later included on Dua Lipa: Complete Edition in 2018, the super deluxe reissue of Dua Lipa’s debut studio album.
Paul had explained that after he, Emily Warren, and Andrew Jackson wrote No Lie, someone in his management group suggested Lipa be approached. “Emily did a demo of it and there’s a certain thing about her vocals that just stands out. Nobody could hit it. I didn’t know what Dua sounded like, but when I heard her demo, I knew it was it,” he told AskMen.
Paul’s Mad Love EP has sold 348,000 units in the U.S., including 1,500 pure album sales and 621 million streams, sales tracker Luminate told DancehallMag.
The 9-track EP featured other notable collaborations such as Mad Love with David Guetta and Becky G, Tip Pon It with Major Lazer, Body with Migos, and Tek Weh Yuh Heart with Tory Lanez.
Only a handful of Jamaican-led songs have managed to surpass the 1 billion plays mark on Spotify. OMI‘s Cheerleader (Remix) is currently at 1.5 billion.
Producer Walshy Fire, part of the DJ trio Major Lazer, is also in the exclusive club with the tracks Lean On with DJ Snake & MØ (2015), Light It Up (Remix) with Brick & Lace’s Nyla and Fuse ODG, and Cold Water with Justin Bieber & MØ (2016) each achieving over 1 billion plays on Spotify.
