(Credit: Lyndsay Siegel)
Pan-pop shapeshifter Santogold changes gears faster than a Formula 1 racer, and ever since we heard her breakthrough single, “L.E.S. Artistes,” she’s had us mesmerized by her haunting hooks, droned-out chants, and electro beats, fronted by powerhouse pipes that conjure images of a closed-door meeting between Nelly Furtado and Grace Jones. And while her sound is anything but formulaic, it’s definitely no accident — Santi’s no radio rookie, after all. She studied music in college, sang in a ska-punk band, and scouted talent in the A&R department of a record label. She then ditched the day job and sharpened her songwriting and production chops on neo-soul rocker Res‘ 2001 critically acclaimed album, How I Do (an album we love to this day), and she co-wrote Ashlee Simpson’s “Outta My Head (Ay Ya Ya).”
Eventually, Santogold stopped playing record label Robin Hood (i.e. learning from the big-timers to bring up the small-timers). She took back the creative control she was giving other artists and started working her mojo on her own projects. “We began trying to write pop songs to sell, which made us depressed,” she explained, in the third person, “so we started writing songs for ourselves instead.”
Which is why we’re now starting to think — and hope — that she’s taking over the world. Not only did she appear on Mark Ronson’s Version album, but she signed to Downtown Records, where she released her hotter-than-a-stolen-tamale self-titled debut, which she banged out in just eight weeks and released in spring 2008. The buzz on that, meanwhile, is only getting louder. Throw in Bud Light Lime and Zune commercials, plus a Converse deal and a just-announced opening slot on Coldplay’s tour (somehow we couldn’t see M.I.A. — with whom Santo toured — and Chris Martin cooperatively sharing a stage), and it’s becoming abundantly clear why Santi White makes albums, but Santogold — the girl with “gold record” practically built right into her name — sells them.
These days, you can barely open a magazine, with the exception of maybe Field & Stream and Reader’s Digest, without someone raving that she’s the biggest, if not the best, hot young thing. Now she’s in more places than your cell phone provider. When she was Santi White, she was behind the scenes. Now Santogold is the scene.
+ Watch Santogold’s “L.E.S. Artistes” video, check out photos from her Coney Island Artist of the Week shoot below, watch her mtvU interviews, and watch all of her Artist of the Week videos here.
