A Bite of Rostam 🍪

The influential producer and solo artist hailed as one of the great talents of his generation

Grace Lilly

Jun 23, 2025

Monday Bites are bite-sized musician spotlights & playlists by Grace Lilly.

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• 3 min read •

You’ve heard his music

Even if you don’t think you have. Like Carole King, Rostam’s influence is ubiquitous once you start noticing it.

Producing for some of the most important artists of the last decade, he’s responsible for hit songs like Clairo’s fan-favorite “Sofia” and Frank Ocean’s beloved “Ivy.” In fact, he co-produced the highly-anticipated new HAIM album, I quit, released last week.

Some of the albums Rostam has produced songs for

Rostam is also an uber-talented solo artist. Creating dreamy, lush, and emotionally powerful songs is his specialty. Each one feels bigger and more beautiful than the last. The Fader referred to his song “Don’t Let it Get to You” as,

“… a seismic event of a song.”

Like David Byrne, he plays with lots of different mediums: he sings, plays instruments like guitar, drums, flute, and piano, writes lyrics, composes original music for film and theater, he’s even directed music videos.

In my own life, he’s made some of my favorite music. As a teen, I spent hours listening to the albums he produced as a member of Vampire Weekend. As an adult, his solo work has been equal parts soothing and inspirational for me.

Rostam is one of the only contemporary artists whose work I’ve consistently loved in every iteration over the last 15 years. I bet you’ll love him too.

Rostam

The basics

🤝 American musician

🤝 b. 1983 (Washington, D.C.)

🤝 Blends diverse musical styles, creating a signature sound that is both experimental and accessible

Why you should know him: A Grammy Award-winning songwriter, producer & composer, Rostam has been described as one of the great talents of his generation

If you like

✨ Arthur Russell

✨ Clairo

✨ Frank Ocean

✨ David Byrne

✨ Vampire Weekend

✨ HAIM

✨ Maggie Rogers

Known for

🏆 Being a solo artist, multi-instrumentalist, and influential producer

🏆 His innovative arrangements & emotionally resonant lyrics

🏆 Being a founding member of the band Vampire Weekend, producing their first 3 albums

🏆 Producing for Frank Ocean, Solange, Haim, Maggie Rogers, Charli XCX, Hamilton Leithauser and Clairo

🏆 1 Grammy Award and 3 Grammy Award nominations

Bite-sized facts

🍪 Born Rostam Batmanglij, known mononymously as Rostam, the youngest son of Iranian immigrants

🍪 Art and creativity were a big part of his family life growing up; learned flute and guitar, had a passion for sketching and painting

Rostam with his mom Najmieh on his first birthday

🍪 By his teen years, was dissecting and reassembling pieces of music; started arranging intricate compositions with Pro Tools

🍪 Went to Columbia University, majoring in music; joined the band Vampire Weekend in 2006 — acted as a lyricist and songwriter, played guitar, keyboard and sang

🍪 At 24, was on the cover of Spin with fellow Vampire Weekend bandmates before their debut album had even come out, a first in the magazine’s history (and Spin named them Best New Band of 2008)

🍪 While working multiple full-time jobs, Rostam produced Vampire Weekend’s debut album, Vampire Weekend

🍪 At 26, came out as gay in Out magazine in 2010; said in 2015 that Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste had influenced his decision to publicly come out

Rostam, left, on the March 2008 cover of *Spin*

🍪 At 27, produced his first No. 1 album, Contra (Vampire Weekend's second album) — got his first Grammy Award nomination for Best Alternative Album

🍪 Launched his solo career in 2011 with his song “Don’t Let it Get to You,” which debuted as “the Hottest Record in the World” on BBC Radio 1

🍪 At 30, won his first Grammy Award — Best Alternative Music Album for Vampire Weekend’s Modern Vampire of the City (2013)

🍪 In 2014, wrote original music for a Broadway play This is Our Youth, starring Kieran Culkin, Michael Cera, and Tavi Gevinson

🍪 At 33, left Vampire Weekend to pursue solo projects and released his critically-acclaimed first solo album, Half-Light (2017)

🍪 Since leaving Vampire Weekend, has produced award-winning music for artists like Clairo, HAIM, Maggie Rogers, and more

🍪 Has also worked in film, collaborating on multiple projects with his brother, independent filmmaker Zal Batmanglij

In film & TV

📺 The Sound of My Voice (2011): scored this psychological thriller which his brother Zal directed and co-wrote

📺 The East (2013): composed an original piece for piano that was featured in this thriller starring Elliot Page, Alexander Skarsgård, and Brit Marling

📺 The OA (2016): composed the music for both seasons of this Netflix mystery drama series

📺 The Persian Version (2023): wrote the score for this Sundance Festival Award-winning feature film

Art for Rostam’s first solo album, *Half-Light*

Songs & dates

♫ 2008 “Mansard Roof,” “A-Punk,” “Oxford Comma,” and “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance” are released as singles off of Vampire Weekend’s debut album, produced by Rostam

♫ 2009 Releases the debut album for his band with Ra Ra Riot’s Wes Miles, Discovery, called LP; features guest vocal contributions from Ezra Koenig (Vampire Weekend) and Angel Deradoorian (Dirty Projectors)

♫ 2010 “Horchata,” “Cousins,” “Giving Up the Gun,” “Holiday,” “White Sky,” and “Run” are released as singles off of Vampire Weekend’s second ablum, Contra, sells 124,000 copies in its first week and lands atop the Billboard 200 charts

♫ 2011 Releases “Wood” as his first official single as a solo artist; Time Out Chicago's Brent DiCrescenzo gives the song 4 out of 5 stars and writes that “his voice pleasantly recalls a drowsy David Byrne”

♫ 2013 Vampire Weekend release singles “Diane Young” and “Step,” each gets more than 1 million views on Youtube within first 2 weeks; from the Rostam-produced album Modern Vampires of the City

♫ 2016 Releases his debut album with Hamilton Leithauser, I Had a Dream That You Were Mine

♫ 2017 Releases “Don’t Let it Get to You,” “Gwan,” “EOS,” “Half-Light” and “Bike Dream” as singles off his debut solo album, Half-Light

♫ 2021 “These Kids We Knew” and “4Runner” are released as singles off his 2nd full-length studio album, Changephobia

He said

⭐ “I think the music that speaks to me the most is music that is personal. And that's the music that I'm trying to make.”

⭐ “I like the idea that a song can be about a romantic relationship, but it can also about a relationship to your career, or a relationship to your city.”

⭐ “At Columbia, I would study classical harmony in classes and I would study music on my own, and I would try to recreate songs that I love in recordings... that was really how I learned.”

⭐ “When an old tape machine makes pitch wobble, some people would say that compromises fidelity and would try to get rid of it. But to me that wobble adds richness, it instantly brings back the feelings you associate with old recordings.”