You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishikesh, your way.

Andre Allen Anjos is better known as RAC, a musician who first found success by remixing other people's songs.

His remixes for artists like Lana Del Rey have gotten millions of plays online. In 2013, RAC released Strangers, his first album of original material.

And in this episode, he breaks down the song Let Go from that record.

It features guest vocals from Kelly, best known as the frontman of the band Block Party, and singer MNDR, who talks later on about her experience working on the track.

Here's Let Go by RAC on Song Exploder.

My name is Andre, I make music as RAC. I think I started writing this song in like early 2010.

It was actually the first track that I got a singer on, which Kelly from Block Party was actually the first guy to agree to do anything on this album.

I did a couple of remixes for Block Party before, and this was actually pre-RAC. I was still living in Portugal at the time. I think it was 2005.

I wasn't even in college, I was basically begging for remixes. I just hit them up, I was like, please, please let me remix this. I love it. They were super supportive.

And this was before RAC, and that's what kicked it off.

So, it was kind of fun that the first official remix I ever did ended up being also the first guest vocalist to sign off on singing on this record many years later.

Before I reached out, I already had a basic idea of what I wanted to do. I think it was just a bass line, really. I think it was like a bass line in the drums.

I used that as a starting point, really.

The only direction I really gave anybody on the album was that I wanted to write a pop album. A pop album was substance, and he came back with those verses.

He played up to them, but they're not around. Don't be so rough with me when you are a gem.

His original chorus ended up being the pre-chorus.

You are golden. You are your, you are golden.

I used it, but I felt like it made more sense as a pre-chorus. And that's kind of the reason why I brought an M&DR.

I felt like it just needed something extra. And I've always liked it when there's sort of a male and female vocal in a song.

So, I just straight up called E-Mail Amanda and asked her if she would write a chorus for this.

And I was like, yeah, I love to. I love to. It's got a fun soundcloud and everything you've been doing. This is M&DR.

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