Ed Sheeran has recently teamed up with Ukrainian band, Antytila, to release a brand new remix of the British artist’s song “2Step.”
The music video for the track was filmed in Kyiv and in northeast Ukraine where Taras Topolia, Antytila’s frontman, is working as a medic.
The “2Step” collaboration comes after Antytila was denied their request to join a recent benefit concert featuring Sheeran and a number of other artists. According to the event organizers, the band was ultimately unable to join the event due to their involvement in the war and the organizers’ desire to avoid “association with any kind of military.”
Sheeran reached out to the band sometime after and ultimately invited them to write a special verse for the song.
“They proposed to us to write an absolutely new second verse and second chorus,” Topolia said. “Of course, it was very pleasing for us and we, of course, agreed to do this.”
“There were really hard battles in the outskirts of Kyiv and we were doing our job,” he continued, highlighting the difficult circumstances that surrounded the project. “We understood that it’s very important, despite that we are doing our military job, it’s very essential to create something, of course, to write some new lyrics and to find the words and find the inspiration to do this.”
In Antytila’s added lyrics, Topolia “tells his own story of how the war started for his family. And this is not just his own personal story, but the story of millions of Ukrainians, whose families have been separated by disastrous shelling and war,” according to a statement from the band’s spokesperson.
Listen to the remix of “2Step” below.
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Photo credit: Cubankite / Shutterstock.com