Santigold is a present. The genre-smashing artist has an innate musical capacity to transcend any imposed boundaries, leading to an attractive gumbo of hip-hop, reggae, new wave, and ’80s pop, to call just a few. Her fourth studio album, Spirituals, launched in September, finds the Philly native as soon as once more embracing her experimental tendencies and additional establishing her inimitable sound, all with a recent perspective.
In any case, it’s been an extended 4 years since she launched the I Don’t Want: The Gold Fire Sessions mixtape. Not solely is she the mom to 3 youngsters (together with twins), however she additionally, like the remainder of us, has gone via a life-altering pandemic. Starting in March 2020, as COVID-19 started its rampage, the live performance trade got here to a screeching halt, forcing everybody into isolation. No extra concert events. No extra excursions. No extra unbearable nights sleeping on tour buses or enduring cramped flights. All of it—good and unhealthy—was over. Throughout that point, Santigold was deeply affected by the altering world round her, but it surely resulted within the 10 tracks that make up Spirituals.
“It affected my songwriting as a result of I’m a very delicate being as an artist,” she informed Excessive Occasions by way of Zoom. “So, I’m very a lot a sponge of the power round me. And when there was so many issues occurring, it was similar to, there was the pandemic, fires burning in every single place, protests, police brutality and now, ladies’s rights are being taken away and there are shootings in every single place. It’s loopy instances proper now.
“For an individual like me, I believe my job as an artist is to form of mirror tradition and what’s occurring. So, it’s my interpretation coupled with taking one thing from no matter different dimensions I can; no matter artwork comes from as a result of half the time, I don’t know that it’s solely coming from me, to be trustworthy.”
As Santigold defined, the chaos, destruction, and voyage into the unknown fueled her creativity in a means she nearly can’t perceive. To maneuver tradition ahead, she aimed to create some magnificence, gentle, and pleasure by mirroring what was occurring. She needed to settle for, “That is fucked up, however I’m going to course of it on this music.”
The end result was songs resembling “High Priestess” and “Shake,” which she hoped would assist others course of the societal insanity infecting each nook of the globe and making life totally depressing to navigate.
“Possibly in my processing of it, you possibly can profit from that, and you may say, ‘Hey, yeah, it did really feel like that and perhaps I’ll course of it, too,’” she continued. “Then we are able to discover our means via it as a result of I do suppose that it’s essential to speak about issues. And for me, it’s important to speak about issues and create as a result of that’s my lifeline. When issues get powerful, that’s what will get me via it. I’m engaged on a ebook, I’m engaged on physique merchandise and teas, and I’ll simply maintain going. That’s what I do. The more durable it’s, the extra I’m going to make.”
And it was positively a wrestle; she’ll be the primary to confess it. The calls for of motherhood and a high-profile music profession usually didn’t align, and it grew to become a fragile dance.
“This document was about ascension, transcendence, and multidimensionality; how we’re multifaceted beings and we stay in a multidimensional existence,” she stated. “There’s so many various methods to see and take into consideration issues or to expertise issues. And for me, this album was actually about rising above my setting, rising above my circumstances, to form of, at the least, contact base with the upper model of myself or the universe to simply know, to expertise being free in an setting the place I used to be not being free within the second.
“I used to be in mother mode. I really like being a mom, however I’m additionally an artist. And people two issues generally don’t go hand in hand as a result of one is totally selfless and by no means having any time or area to your self, and the opposite is all about area and time and coping with your self.
“I felt like I used to be residing on this tiny little a part of myself and form of suffocating in that and, as a result of this was throughout lockdown, there was no person serving to. I used to be wiping butts and cooking all day, each day, not even sleeping at night time. It was simply loopy.”
Nevertheless it helped level Santigold in a inventive path that would alleviate a few of that stress.
“I referred to as it Spirituals as a result of conventional spirituals have been songs that principally helped slaves in slavery—who have been actually not free—expertise freedom via music. It lifted them up and transcended their circumstance to, ‘That is what it feels wish to be free.’ That’s what music can do. And that’s why I referred to as it Spirituals as a result of that’s what this album’s about. It’s concerning the pursuit of particular person freedom, transcendence, creating magnificence and lightweight and discovering your technique to a greater future.”
Santigold’s future is vivid. She’s engaged on a plethora of initiatives, together with a ebook (or, as she described, “an fascinating tackle a memoir”), podcast, movie, and retail merchandise. However past that, Santigold has an even bigger mission, and it’s not a straightforward one. Mainstream music is undeniably clogged with hyper-sexualized feminine artists who sing or rap about very slim topic issues—and that’s to not say they aren’t allowed to specific themselves in that method, however the lack of range amongst ladies is obviously obvious.
“The world of music for me is a tough one,” Santigold admits. “I really like making music, but it surely’s actually exhausting to be an artist like me proper now. I don’t really feel like there’s as a lot help for artists attempting to go towards the mainstream and do one thing completely different and speak about issues which are related to the world. I really feel just like the music that’s championed or held up by the mainstream is music that’s a commodity, what sells. After which the labels dictate what that’s.
“So that you get all this music that’s about nothing, and that’s the music that turns into the principle music of tradition, and it’s very unhappy and truthfully, it’s discouraging. You spend all this time making it, and you are feeling so good about it, after which we’ve got to reenter the matrix of the music trade, we’re similar to, ‘Oh God, I simply wish to get out once more.’ You simply wish to get out.”
The irony of that assertion is the trade wants ladies like Santigold to stay round so stability is restored. Within the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s, music usually stood for one thing. Public Enemy was boldly shouting “Fight The Power,” Marvin Gaye needed to know “What’s Going On?” and Gil Scott-Heron put a highlight on the civil rights motion with “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.”
“I get it,” she stated. “Everybody’s doing medicine, taking part in video video games, and on social media as a result of they’re simply attempting to flee. This world is fucking heavy proper now, and it’s exhausting. It’s miserable. It’s discouraging. I get it. However perhaps, if there was music the place individuals have been speaking about how you can survive it, how you can uplift it and the place we are able to go, then it wouldn’t be so miserable. And that’s the job of artwork. The job of artwork is to save lots of us all and to push us ahead. And if there are artists attempting to try this who aren’t supported, then they disappear and the music suffers. All through historical past, there’s been music like that and now might be the least that there’s ever been of substantive, topical music. It nearly doesn’t exist.”
She’s additionally targeted on caring for herself. Now 45, she additionally made private modifications to her weight loss plan and total life-style. Her father, who handed away from most cancers at 55, was an enormous wake-up name to really take note of what goes into her physique, but additionally discover the quantity of stress being an artist places on her.
“Being a musician isn’t a profession, simply to place that on the market,” she stated matter-of-factly. “Except you’re one of many high individuals, it’s not a profession. No person buys music, so that you make the music for some huge cash. You spend some huge cash to make the music, then you definately give it away without spending a dime. Then it’s a must to determine 18 jobs to do to assist individuals take heed to your music as a result of there’s 40,000 songs that come out each day on Spotify, one thing like that. So, you’re doing 5 individuals’s jobs. That’s how a lot work it’s simply attempting to be a musician.”
From the surface wanting in, Santigold handles it like a professional, and if Spirituals is any indication of the usual she holds herself to, she works tirelessly. However for her followers, each album is a peek into her ever-evolving inventive journey and, sure, a present.
This interview has been edited for size and readability. It was Up to date within the November 2022 situation of Excessive Occasions Journal.