Light It Up (Remix) was released on November 5, 2015 as a single and went Platinum on March 1, 2017. The EDM-Afrobeats-Dancehall fusion song was then certified double Platinum on September 15, 2021 by the Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) for sales and streams amounting to 2 million units in the U.S. It is also certified 2x Platinum in the United Kingdom (1,200,000 units), Denmark (180,000 units),Belgium (40,000 units), Spain 3x Platinum (120,000 units), and Italy 5x Platinum (250,000 units).
Light It Up, debuted at 98, then peaked at No. 73 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It peaked at No. 7 on the UK Singles chart. It is Nyla and Fuse ODG’s highest charting song to date in the United States.
Two music videos and a lyric video were released for the song; one in Ghana, the home of Fuse ODG directed by Sam Pilling showcasing street scenes from the motherland. That video has surpassed 48 million views on YouTube.
In describing the process for creating the video Pilling said, “working with Diplo we discussed how he wanted to convey this simple message with a real sense of beauty, authenticity and genuine feeling. Because Fuse’s family is from Ghana, and he was over there recording, we thought it would bring a really interesting aesthetic to film the video there. Delving deeper into Ghanaian culture, we found that their traditional funeral ceremonies perfectly exemplify this sense of coming together to rise up against sadness.”
“The whole community joins together, first in mourning the death, then in celebrating the life that was lived. We worked closely with a Ghanaian family and rural village, meeting the elders and receiving their blessing to film and partake in a real funeral ceremony,” he continued.
The video is edited in black and white and Sam said he wanted everything in the video to be real.
“We wanted to base the video in this very real, documentary world but also tried to capture a sense of journey and passing of the deceased’s spirit by adding a surreal tone to our visuals, both in terms of the way we filmed the funeral but also by adding some more ethereal elements to the piece. I found a poem “Kae” [Remember] written in a traditional Ghanaian language; Twe, which felt like the perfect companion to the video as it is about reflecting on sadness but rising up and looking to the future and to new life.”
Another more artistic music video directed by Rupert Burton of Methods Designs which has over 537 million views on YouTube. That video is centered around a character embodying creativity, accompanied by dancing avatars created with procedural art with custom algorithms and a CG environment.
“Light It Up” is one of the songs that are claimed by dancehall pioneers Steely and Clevie Estate to infringe upon the 80s dancehall riddim Fish Market in a genre sweeping lawsuit.
