In an interview with Complex, Rithie went into detail about the difficulties in arrangement of the song considering the massive array of various featured artists:

Ritchie With A T: No matter what people say about Drive It Like It’s Stolen, I wouldn’t be able to do the “New Hawaii” verse without that project. Finding that version of me as a writer on songs like “North Pole” and “93 Cadillac Deville” was really important for that conversational and straightforward delivery, and being able to paint with the writing. I was able to execute that with “New Hawaii” and I’m proud of it.

Later on in the process, some time after our trip to Prague, we pulled up to the studio with DRAM and he showed us his vocals for “New Hawaii.” Once we heard them, we knew that we had to move things around on the song. His vocals were originally supposed to go after the first hook, but I had become attached to just hearing the beat breathe for a little bit, especially on this dense ass album.

Bringing the hook in after my vocals dragged the song on for too long. So Parker, Nick, Hip-Hop, and I are in the room, and Parker had tried putting Tony’s vocals behind my verse for some familiarity. Then we brought the strings in right after. It gave more meaning to that last line. Hip-Hop helped Parker with drums on that last part and that was it."

Melikxyz also mentions how a song he originally produced got transformed in this song:

Melikxyz: “New Hawaii” was a song I made in the room by myself and that I showed to Parker. He sampled a beat I’d made and then slowed it down from about 100 bpm to damn near 20 bpm. He didn’t even ask for the stems; he literally sampled the MP3 and slowed all the drums down and put his own drums on top of it.