On Saturday, August 30, 2025, the Jamaican singer OMI reached an unprecedented milestone: his breakout hit “Cheerleader (Felix Jaehn Remix)” surpassed 2 billion streams on Spotify, making it the first song by a Jamaican artist to ever cross that threshold. It is the 204th track in Spotify history to reach the milestone.
OMI—born Omar Samuel Pasley in Clarendon, Jamaica—first sketched its melody in 2008, likening it to a Jamaican “ring game” rhyme that came to him in the middle of the night.
Working alongside Clifton “Specialist” Dillon, the influential producer and label head who discovered him in 2009, the track’s original recording, released in 2012 through Dillon’s Oufah label, with contributions from legendary Jamaican rhythm duo Sly and Robbie and saxophonist Dean Fraser. It became a local success, attracting regional airplay in places as far-flung as Hawaii and Dubai.
The song’s global breakthrough, however, came courtesy of a remix by German DJ Felix Jaehn. Commissioned by Ultra Records, Jaehn’s version stripped back much of the reggae-pop instrumentation, replacing it with a lighter, tropical house bounce built around trumpet flourishes, conga rhythms, and piano. Released in May 19 2014, it quickly began climbing charts in Europe before exploding worldwide in 2015. “Cheerleader” eventually topped charts in more than 24 countries, spent six non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and helped propel OMI’s debut album Me 4 U to streaming figures that now exceed 2.3 billion on Spotify—making it the highest-streaming album by a Jamaican of the 21st century.
The single’s reggae-pop optimism and breezy horn riff made it a wedding staple, a sports arena chant, and a radio juggernaut. It has since been certified multi-platinum in dozens of countries, including 5x Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (2,100,000) and 3x Platinum in the U.S. by the Recording Industry Association Of America (3,000,000 units). It’s staying power has endured even through legal disputes which caused a freeze on royalties.
OMI himself has long stressed that success means both versatility and ownership. “An artist should be able to create and shouldn’t be put in a box,” he once told World Music Views. “Owning your masters is your legacy.” That perspective, paired with a melody that once sounded like a nursery rhyme in the quiet of a Clarendon night, has now given Jamaica its most streamed song in history.
