Jesse Ruben

Singer-songwriter Jesse Ruben has built his career on a simple but uncommon belief: that music, at its best, is an act of generosity.

Raised in Philadelphia and shaped by 15 years in New York City, Jesse developed a sound rooted in folk-pop craftsmanship and lyrical precision. He has always written songs the way a good novelist writes a scene: specific enough to feel true, universal enough to feel like yours. That quality has defined his catalog from his earliest recordings to his biggest streaming moments.

"We Can," the song that introduced Jesse to a national audience, began as a personal challenge. Training for the New York City Marathon, Jesse channeled the mental work of long-distance running into a song about human potential. It landed everywhere. TODAY Show host Hoda Kotb personally invited him to perform it live on air. Teachers began playing it in classrooms. Coaches used it in locker rooms. What started as a running anthem became something more: a community organizing principle. That community eventually became The We Can Project, a formal initiative Jesse founded to help elementary and middle school students discover their passions and connect those passions to service. To date, more than 800,000 young people have participated in the program.

His follow-up single "This Is Why I Need You" reached the top 10 in 12 countries and has accumulated more than 60 million streams across all platforms. The song earned Jesse a live session on MTV Asia and put his music in front of audiences on every continent. His catalog has since been featured on more than a dozen TV shows in the US and abroad, including Teen Mom, Switched at Birth, The Bachelor (Germany), and the Disney+ series Diary of a Future President. He has recorded for NPR and PBS, and has toured the US and Europe.

Off stage, Jesse carries the same commitment to showing up that defines his live performances. After being diagnosed with Lyme disease in 2013, a journey that required consultations with 15 different doctors over nine months before finding answers, he channeled his experience into advocacy. He co-founded Generation Lyme, now the world's largest provider of online support communities for people affected by tick-borne illness. He has spoken at Lyme disease events across the US and Europe and has run the NYC Marathon eight times in total, raising funds for Lyme research and the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. In 2018, Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut recognized his advocacy with the Starlight Award.

Jesse Ruben performs with ease and openness. There is no distance between him and the audience. Songs that began on a stage in Brooklyn or a studio in Virginia arrive in the room with the full weight of everything they mean, and every person in the room seems to feel it personally