Steve Aoki and Sub Zero Project have officially released their reimagined version of Nero‘s ‘Promises‘, closing the loop on a collaboration that’s been quietly tearing up festival stages for the better part of a year. The track has already made appearances at Tomorrowland, EDC Las Vegas, Ultra Australia, Ultra Peru, and Amsterdam Music Festival before finally getting its studio treatment.
For those who came up on dubstep’s early 2010s wave, Nero’s ‘Promises’ needs no introduction. The original, built around Alana Watson’s vocal and one of the genre’s most quoted drops, became a defining record of that era. Reworking it is no small task, and pairing Aoki’s genre-hopping instincts with Sub Zero Project‘s hard dance sound makes for an interesting bridge between two very different corners of the scene.
The new version keeps the emotional core of the original intact while rebuilding it for a modern main stage. Expect bass-driven drops, uptempo breaks, and a bigger overall scale, all wrapped around that same chorus that made the original so recognizable. The collaboration was actually road-tested live long before this release, with crowds hearing the track evolve in real time across festival sets.
“There’s a fine line between paying tribute to a classic and giving it a new identity, and that’s what made this collaboration with Sub Zero Project so exciting,” says Steve Aoki. “We wanted to preserve what made ‘Promises’ so memorable while giving it a completely new perspective. The track really found itself through the live shows — every time we played it, the crowd showed us where to keep pushing it. By the time we finished the record, it had already taken on a life of its own, and that’s when you know you’ve created something special.”
Sub Zero Project — the Dutch hardstyle duo made up of Nigel Coppen and Thomas Velderman — echoed that sentiment, calling the collaboration a long time coming. “It was a huge honor to finally collaborate with the legend Steve Aoki and we had so much fun creating this track together,” the duo shares. “We’ve been playing ‘Promises’ for well over a year and it has become a true highlight in our live sets at events such as Tomorrowland, EDC Las Vegas, Ultra Australia, Ultra Peru, Amsterdam Music Festival and many more, with explosive crowd reactions every single time.”
This release also slots into a bigger picture for Aoki this year — 2026 marks the 30th anniversary of his label Dim Mak Records, which he’s celebrating with the ongoing Dim Mak 30 Tour. The run includes stops at Austin City Limits and EDC Orlando, along with dates across Tokyo, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and New York City.
Dim Mak has been Aoki’s project since the mid-90s and has served as an early platform for acts like Bloc Party, The Chainsmokers, Bloody Beetroots, and Zedd before they became festival mainstays. Three decades in, the label remains one of the more consistent forces in dance music’s independent scene.
Stream ‘Promises‘ now.
