Don’t try to fit me neatly into a box
Santigold has always defied the ‘norm’ and her new albums is a smart critique of the status quo
You’ll have to negotiate a few byways among the highways to get to the Body & Soul Festival in Ballinlough, Westmeath, next weekend but trust me it will be worth your while. Among the headliners is Santigold who has taken the road less travelled herself, in a musical sense at least.
The African-American musician is that rare thing, a black artist who isn’t an R&B or hip hop singer, rather one who hops genres incorporating elements of pop, jazz, indie rock, reggae and punk.
When you ask who has inspired her, she, perhaps unsurprisingly, puts Prince near the top of the list before naming Grace Jones, Cocteau Twins, Devo, Nina Simone, The Smiths, Tina Turner, David Bowie and Jimi Hendrix.
‘I’m going to stop there but, trust me, that list is in no way complete,’ she says.
‘People in general are more open to listening to all kinds of music rather than just a couple of specific genres. The arrival of the internet meant people suddenly had access to all kinds of music at their fingertips.
In turn, artists have become more willing to hop genres. When my first record came out people were baffled by the fact that my music didn’t fit neatly into a box; now it doesn’t seem that strange at all. I’m still asked, “Do you sing rap or R&B?” It’s as if those are the only two possibilities for a person who looks like me. But f*** it; I don’t really care at this point. The floodgates are open.’
Before she was Santigold, she called herself Santogold after a childhood nickname but had to change it for fear of a lawsuit being brought by the producers of an obscure Eighties movie of a similar name. Before all that she was an A& R representative helping nurture talents for the music industry. In the intervening 10 years or so, that industry has, of course, changed in some respects beyond recognition.
‘So many things have changed since I worked at a record label; smart artists don’t really even present their music to record companies any more,’ she says.
‘They use the internet or social media to create a buzz so large that the record companies have to create a pitch to them, rather than the other way around. I think that the most important thing that I took away from my experience on the label side though is to understand that what is art to me is just business to them. And I don’t have any illusions about that.’
This year, Santigold released her third album, 99c, the most vibrant, exhilarating album you may ever have heard about how we are being smothered as individuals by the effect of consumerism. On the cover Santi White, as her parents know her, is ‘shrink-wrapped’ alongside a seemingly random selection of cheap and gaudy products, her eyes glassy, her face in expressionless repose.
‘The album addresses issues like hyper-consumption, narcissism, and everybody being a product and for sale in some way,’ she declares.
‘I wrote Rendezvous Girl about so-called socialites. Big Boss is about how hard it is being an artist and a mom and how bad-ass I have to be, it feels like I almost have to be superhuman at times to even make it in this career.’
Among the other standouts, Can’t Get Enough Of Myself sounds deceptively like sugary pop but its medicinal message is soon heard while Who Be Lovin Me pokes fun at the braggarts that populate the world of rap. Many men may want to take a cop-on tablet after listening to it.
The 39-year-old artist touched on the fact that since her 2012 album, Master Of My Make-Believe, she has become a mother and the track Outside The War is reflective of her re-appraised view of the planet. ‘It’s saying that if we citizens of this planet don’t take care of each other and our world and instead continue to embrace this climate of fear and aggression we will all do ourselves in,’ she says.
‘I think the world in general is in a dangerous place. We are still thinking of ourselves separately, when really we are one. When one person, one corporation or one nation does something detrimental we all suffer. We are ruining the planet that gives us life, and are too distracted in the pursuit of money over everything else, even humanity, to take in the long term effects of our actions.
‘I think President Obama did try to make some good changes, but one man can’t change anything unless we all change as well.’
Santigold plays Body & Soul, June 17-19, see bodyandsoul.ie
‘It feels like I almost have to be superhuman at times to even make it in this career’