The song was written and produced by Ian Kirkpatrick and The Monsters and the Strangerz, with additional songwriting provided by Sam Martin, Sean Douglas, Talay Riley and Like Mike.

[5] On August 14, Nick said in an interview for MTV, “I’ve been hard at work on the new music trying to push myself lyrically to say some deeper things,” he said.

“And I’ve gone through a lot in this past year and a half and I want to talk about it and just push myself as an artist and continue to grow.” On August 15, Jonas revealed part of the song's lyrics on his personal Twitter account.

'“Levels” clocks in at under three minutes, but were Nick Jonas expands it to three hours of immaculately stacked madness, we'd still play it on a loop.

[7] MTV's Emilee Lindner wrote about the song: "Levels' fuses funk with a club beat, layering the former Jonas Brother’s vocals with his spiraling falsetto ad-libs.

On August 28, Jonas performed the song live on stage during a concert for Time Warner Cable and national HIV/AIDS organization Lifebeat.

[11][12] Jonas also performed the song live on television for the first time at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards red carpet pre-show.

[23] Canadian singer Alessia Cara performed a soulful acoustic cover of the song live on Sirius XM on Tuesday October 13, 2015.