Brandon Lake and Nick Jonas have turned a late-2025 studio tease into a full release, putting out the original single “The Author” at the start of May 2026. They also released a remix of Jonas’s Sunday Best standout “Hope” at the same time, ending months of speculation about what the pair had been building together.
“The Author” lands as a relatively traditional Contemporary Christian Music track, but it still carries the sheen of a crossover event. Lake and Jonas trade verses over swelling piano, and the song builds toward a final hook that adds drums and choral vocals. In one stretch, they sing, “Picked up the Book for the first time in ages / Still washed me clean with the dust on the pages / My life is a story I struggle to write / But is it one worth telling? Is it one You like?”
The collaboration had already drawn attention toward the end of 2025, when Lake shared a clip of the two working on a song together. Fans quickly began guessing whether it was meant for Jonas’s album Sunday Best or for Lake’s own project, a question that now has a clear answer: it was the start of a joint release that arrived in May.
That answer matters because the song is not built like a novelty duet. It follows a clean CCM structure and leans into themes of faith, identity and surrender. On one verse, the pair sing, “So who am I? Who am I? / Am I just a poor preacher's prodigal son? / A troubled child, running wild / Chasing the glory instead of the One / Who says that I, even I / Have something still left to offer? / So who am I? Who am I / To question the pen in the hands of The Author?”
Another passage pushes that idea further: “I see trauma, I see worthless / You see something You can work with / I see weakness, I see failure / You see something good on paper / And I've seen ashes turn to beauty / I've felt heaven working through me / I've seen panic turn to power / Felt Your peace in my darkest hour.” The lyrics give the release its emotional center and explain why listeners treated the pairing as more than a one-off studio moment.
Both artists bring their own background to the song. Lake and Jonas both have fathers who used to be pastors, a detail that gives the collaboration a personal edge even as it arrives in polished pop-gospel form. For Lake, the May release extends a project that began with a short clip and a wave of online guessing. For Jonas, it deepens the Sunday Best era with a new version of one of the album’s stand-out tracks.
The question hanging over the collaboration is no longer what the clip was for. The release of “The Author” and the “Hope” remix makes the point plainly: the two artists were not teasing an album feature, a stray worship session or a one-off social media moment. They were setting up a dual release, and by the start of May 2026 they had delivered it.