The unlikely story of the producer who took an overlooked track from a Brooklyn rapper and pushed it into the Billboard charts
When SAINt JHN released “Roses” in 2016, nobody expected it to become a worldwide hit.
The song came and went without making a major impact. It did not turn the Brooklyn rapper into an international star, and for several years it remained just another track in the endless stream of releases.
Then, in 2019, an 18-year-old producer from Kazakhstan found it.
Imanbek Zeikenov was not living in Los Angeles or London. He was not working in a professional studio surrounded by industry connections. He was a railway worker from the small city of Aksu, creating music after his shifts and experimenting with remixes on an old laptop.
He took “Roses”, rebuilt it with a faster tempo and a club-oriented sound, and uploaded the unofficial version online.
The first reaction? Ten likes.
A few months later, that same remix was everywhere.
It dominated charts across Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, exploded on Shazam, became a viral phenomenon on TikTok, and eventually entered the Billboard Hot 100. For a young producer from Kazakhstan, it was an almost impossible breakthrough.
Imanbek’s remix did not simply revive an old song — it changed the trajectory of both his own career and SAINt JHN’s global recognition.
“I didn’t understand how big Billboard was until I got there”
Before “Roses”, Imanbek had never been part of the international music industry.
He studied railway engineering and worked as a signalman, earning a modest salary while producing electronic music in his spare time.
When the remix started climbing the charts, he had to learn what those achievements actually meant.
“I knew about Billboard, but I only realized how important it was when my track entered the chart,” Imanbek says. “First it was number 55, then number 39, then number 22. I was shocked.”
His success placed him among a small group of Eastern European artists who had reached the American charts. Before him, Romanian producer Edward Maya achieved international recognition with “Stereo Love”, which reached the Billboard Top 100.
But unlike many chart success stories, Imanbek’s rise did not begin with a record label campaign, expensive promotion, or industry connections.
It started with a remix he almost did not upload.
The remix nobody expected to hear
On March 21, 2019, Imanbek posted his version of “Roses” on VK.
He had little confidence in the track.
“I didn’t expect anything from it. I uploaded it during the daytime because fewer people were online. I thought: ‘Who is going to listen to this? I’m embarrassed by it,’” he recalls.
Even the sound itself was not exactly what he preferred. The pitched-up vocal effect, which later became one of the recognizable elements of the remix, was not something he considered his ideal style.
Still, he kept making remixes for fun.
Then people started sharing the track.
Messages appeared. Shazams increased. Music communities reposted the song. One popular VK page uploaded it without mentioning the original artist, presenting it simply as:
Imanbek — “Roses”
That was the moment the track began moving beyond his small online audience.
Making the remix official
The next challenge was legal.
Because Imanbek’s version was an unofficial remix, copyright owners could have removed it from streaming platforms at any moment.
Kirill Dzham from Effective Records contacted him and offered to help release the track officially. What Imanbek did not expect was that the label would negotiate directly with SAINt JHN and his team.
The remix became an official release, and the teenager from Kazakhstan suddenly found himself working with an international artist whose song he had originally discovered online.
The partnership benefited both musicians.
SAINt JHN gained the biggest hit of his career, while Imanbek became one of the most recognizable producers to emerge from Kazakhstan.
“I understand that an artist can feel strange when a remix becomes bigger than the original song,” Imanbek says. “But this is business. We both benefited from it.”