Rihanna unveiled her dark, swaggering new single “Bitch Better Have My Money” last week, and it’s already inspired plenty of discussion. But the person who might have the most interesting insight into the track — aside from Rihanna herself — is fast-rising producer Deputy, who spoke with Fader about the story behind the track.

Officially, “Bitch Better Have My Money” credits Deputy and Kanye West as co-producers with additional production by Travi$ Scott and WondaGurl. But the Brooklyn-based beatmaker asserts pretty insistently that he was the primary force behind the song:

I produced the record — meaning that I went in and helped arrange the vocals. I was instrumental in the writing process and producing the record to where it’s at now. The whole process started in the studio with the writer, and then once Rihanna got a hold of it then she took it to her level.

As far as the other producers on the track, he can only name one thing that Travi$ Scott did, and isn’t entirely clear on what role Wondagurl played. Kanye got the track in Rihanna’s hands, but aside from that, it doesn’t seem like he was very involved in production either:

I owe Kanye nothing but gratitude — he played an instrumental part in getting the record to Rihanna. Wondagurl’s contribution I didn’t know about, but Travi$ came in and added the part in the second verse where the beat changes. The record is 90-95% me — it’s no shade on nobody, but at the end of the day, the record is produced by Deputy. I been in this game for a minute, so I understand how the game is, and it’s cool.

Honestly, that makes a lot of sense because this beat doesn’t really sound like something Kanye would make. It’s very dark, and not in the blown-out Yeezus way; it’s much more akin to Travi$ Scott-style production. Deputy also said he had Rihanna in mind when he came up with the track:

The thing with Rihanna is, you can’t go in doing a record for Rihanna — her range is so wide that you’ll limit yourself trying to focus on it. So I went in and just created what I felt would be dope. When you work from that standpoint, everything comes out dope, so I just did what I felt was dope. Once I did it, I knew for a fact that it would be a Rihanna placement. I even wrote on my vision board, ‘Rihanna placement, Track number 8.’ I named the beat “You Owe Me,” because that’s what I thought it was called. I was like, ‘This shit is her all day. This shit is fire.’

My opinion on the song is glowing, although it seems to be one of those divisive tracks that people either love or hate. My main question after watching Rihanna perform it at last night’s iHeartRadio Awards is if those guitar solos at the end will be added to the album version? They better.

[Photo via Deputy’s Instagram.]