Rostam Batmanglij, Dave Sitek, and More Give a Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Making of Santigold's '99¢'

With past lives as a major label record A&R and frontwoman of a punk band, Philadelphia-born singer and producer Santi White (now known as Santigold) has built a career of leapfrogging genres with ease, and bringing out the best of her collaborators. On her 2008 debut album, Santogold, working with hitmakers Diplo and Switch, she effortlessly blended different styles of music including classic dub, American hip-hop, and 80s new wave.

Since then, she's worked with countless other artists and producers (including ASAP Rocky, Beastie Boys, Pharrell Williams, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O, and more), all while maintaining her fiercely independent voice and ear for out-of-the-box influences.

On her latest record (and first in four years), 99¢, White found herself working with her biggest and farthest-flung cast of artists and beatmakers yet—from California (Hit-Boy) to Atlanta (iLoveMakonnen) to Toronto (Zeds Dead). For some of these contributors, including former Vampire Weekend member Rostam Batmanglij, Grammy-nominated Swedish producer Patrik Berger (Robyn's "Dancing On My Own," Icona Pop's "I Love It," and more), and Los Angeles producer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Justin Raisen, it marked the first time working with the singer. Others, like TV On The Radio's Dave Sitek and LA producer/mixer/songwriter John Hill, have contributed to past Santigold albums.

We've all heard the adage "too many chefs spoil the broth," but that's not the case on 99¢, with White and her cast cycling through Day-Glo synth-pop, Krautrock, and reggae without sacrificing cohesiveness. Five of these collaborators gave us a behind-the-scenes start-to-finish look at their recording processes, from experimenting with sounds to last-minute edits, and explained in their own words how the singer differentiates herself from other artists.

Patrik Berger ("Can't Get Enough Of Myself," "Banshee," "Rendezvous Girl," "All I Got"): For me, Santigold was always an artist that I really liked and was influenced by for a long time. We met in Los Angeles for a couple of days, we started playing around with a few things and from the get-go, I think it was tough for both of us to understand what we were trying to communicate. We could both feel we had a lot in common, but it's always tricky waiting for that thing to snap, where it's like "aha, okay I get it."

We started a couple of things and then I went back to Sweden. Eventually we got together again in New York, and there was a great workflow. We hit it off. Then we'd send tracks back and forth over Skype and emails, she'd sing a part and I'd change stuff around.

I think that's how a lot of things get done nowadays, you just collaborate with so many people around the globe, you have to deal with the technical issues of not being in the same room. I think we would all love to be in a room and just get it done, but we have to figure out ways around it.

Rostam Batmanglij ("Big Boss Big Time Business," "Chasing Shadows," "Run The Races"): I have a studio behind my house, and the morning before we worked together, I just started what became "Chasing Shadows" in my living room on the piano. Then I recorded it on my laptop and put it into Pro-Tools and put a beat behind it and played it for her.

There's one Major Lazer song that she's a guest on ["Hold The Line"] and I always loved her delivery, because it's kind of a speed rap thing, like a Bone Thugs-n-Harmony song. I was like "Santi can you try something like that on this?" and she just went for it and it was rad. We tried a bunch of different ideas and kind of comped them together to create a gibberish version of the song.

John Hill ("Banshee," "Walking In A Circle"): I did most of her first album. We were spending a lot of time in a room trying out different versions of things, and then Switch came in and worked on stuff, and Diplo worked on some things. This time we wrote together for a week but mostly collaborated by sending sessions back and forth. For "Walking In A Circle," everything was in half-time and we ended up double-timing them and turning it into a totally different song.

Justin Raisen ("Who I Thought You Were"): I've always been a fan of Santi and I wanted to go back in time and do something that kind of represented why I first really enjoyed her music. I'm influenced by a lot of late 70s electronic music, bands like Faust and Neu!, and David Bowie's records made in Germany. For "Who I Thought You Were," which I worked on with my younger brother [Nugget] I created a really punky motorik beat.

Dave Sitek ("Before The Fire"): I did that song "Fame" on her last record, I consider her in the visionary side of things. She has a very specific point-of-view and her and I lined up pretty well. The song on this record ["Before The Fire"], I wrote with Sam Dew, and when we wrote we were like "hey, this sounds like a Santi track." Just knowing her, I sent it to her and she loved it, and that's pretty much how it went down.

Berger: BC is a band that me and my Swedish friend Markus Krunegård have been working on for some time now. We were trying to do something that was out of our comfort zone and create music that we felt something different about. We listened to a lot of Ethiopian music and obscure art punk cassettes, trying to do something new, and we have a lot of friends that joined in on this project. Santi really liked that beat for "Can't Get Enough Of Myself," so she wrote on it and ended up using it for the album.

Sitek: Some singers, they're just used to recording their own vocals, so there's a very specific sound they get, and Santi's definitely one of those.

Berger: The song ["Can't Get Enough Of Myself"] was basically done and mixed, and she was like, "Oh by the way, I made a bridge for the song." I thought we had it and it was really cool the way it was, but then I heard what she did, and was like, "Shit, this is just amazing." She had something in the back of her head and thought there was more to the song; she's not precious about stuff in that way.

Batmanglij: As she was finishing the record she was like "Rostam, I have these songs that aren't quite done. I feel you could make it a bigger song." On the song "Run the Races" for example, I added the drums at the beginning of the song, and I also added the kind of trancey synth to build it up further.

Raisen: From the get-go, she had told me how picky she was. She said, "It's so weird, but I immediately liked what we were doing, and that almost never happens." She commands a certain kind of respect like a mom does, you're not going to be an asshole to Santi.

Batmanglij: Santi has a lot of sides to her, which is cool. She's an excellent singer technically, and she has a lot of different voices and knows how to use them. That's something I always liked about her music.

Sitek: Santi and I almost never talk about music. Our interests lie in all kinds of other things. We're really into arts and sciences, we'll talk about funny shit, we're really big on making each other laugh. Music can get really myopic. I think people can really be focussed on the album and what's at hand, but Santi takes a much larger view with her friends. She's dead honest and I think we're lucky to have an artist like her.

All interviews were conducted separately by Max Mertens.