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IVH: Santigold / L.E.S. Artistes [1]
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Date: 2023-07-06
L.E.S. Artistes
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Musical icon, Santigold, is the brainchild and franchise of Santi White, a long time singer and producer from Philadelphia. Her debut album Santogold dropped in 2008. A decade later, she has ultimately changed the face of the pop industry and the way we remember the ’00s. Santi White was no stranger to the music industry, and has experienced both the creative and administrative sides of the business. She started her career as the A&R representative for Epic Records and later left to produce and co-write for Res’s debut album. Her singing career took off when she fronted the punk rock band, Stiffed releasing the albums ‘Sex Sells’ (2003) and ‘Burned Again’ (2005) until she was offered a solo contract by Lizard King Records. It was her debut album, ‘Santogold’ that launched late April of 2008, grabbing the attention of the internet. The ’00s are often looked over as a decade that represented cultural change, however it was artists such as Santigold, LCD Soundsystem and M.I.A. who were helping to shape the sound of pop music. These masters were clashing music genres and dissolving the the lines of sound borders. LCD Soundsystem were making music referencing multiple decades of the past, while M.I.A. introduced Sri Lakan culture to the western world. It was Santigold however, who used her punk rock background infused with an electronic and indie genre to form what can only be called ‘Post-genre Pop.’ — ICON
You'll Find a Way
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The exact details of my first dalliance with Santigold elude me — probably because when it arrived, in 2008, it instantly felt ubiquitous. (Technically, back then, the album was called Santogold, as was the artist – but both have been known as Santigold following a name change in 2009.) I heard "Creator" playing in the bars that my man and I frequented on the Lower East Side; I glimpsed her name in bold while flipping through the Fader or scrolling on Pitchfork, any number of those buzzy outlets obsessed with the new and the next; who knows, I probably even posted critic Leah Greenblatt's capsule review of the album on EW.com (where I worked at the time). When I nabbed my own copy I got a good look at its cover, connecting the sounds and the name I recognized with the image of the artist behind them. Imprinting, almost. And sis glared back at me, 100 percent grit — the only glam thing about her the gold glitter spewing out of her mouth. Whoa, I remember thinking, what's the story here? I discovered, to my delight, that Santi White and I had a lot in common. Both of us Black women, of course, and both 32 that year — the wrong age, race and gender to just be making a name, especially as creatives in youth-obsessed New York City. Like me, I'd learn from the profiles I'd dig into as companion pieces to my regular listening, she had paid dues behind the scenes before trying out for the showier roles (though her days in A&R and fronting a punk band called Stiffed were obviously more exciting than mine toggling between media jobs). Also like me, she was musically ravenous. Her skinfolk had steeped her in a love of traditionally Black forms — jazz and soul, then Afrobeat, dub — but she was interested too in other genres beloved by the weird white kids she'd befriended in school (among favorites she's cited: Devo, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Pixies, David Byrne). At some point she'd mustered the gall to mix it all up, and in her stew of an album I recognized a freedom, a flouting: the soul of Black folk banging alongside punks, pop idols, knob-twiddlers, new wavers. I thought about the long stretch of time between her start in the business and this inspiring moment, and sensed that art this accomplished, this sure, couldn't have come on any other wavelength or timeline. Considering our similarities, I held her success very close to my heart. — NPR
Shove It (Feat. Spank Rock)
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Amid all the incredible music coming out of New York in the aughts, her style and perspective spoke the loudest to me. Lyrically, much of Santigold carried the swagger of the hip-hop I loved (from "Creator": "Tell me no, I say yes, I was chosen / And I will deliver the explosion"), but minus the misogyny that often stopped me cold on the dance floor. And though the era's resurgent rock & rollers like the Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs sparked electric, channeling the city's jittery energy, for me Santigold's debut was funnier, sharper. She had a mean eye-roll, reserved for the city's suckas and the indignities of competing against them ("L.E.S. Artistes," "Shove It," "Starstruck"). But a wink was there too, in her stories of overcoming doubt ("My Superman"), cops and robbers ("Unstoppable"), even power outages ("Lights Out"). The album has big "look what I can do" attitude, and in that way it speaks to the New York dream of looming exceptional — one singular sensation — above the masses. And yet what is this city without its people, without the connections you make on your way to the top? To that point, some of Santigold's songs have a galvanizing magic too. There's the "us" in battle on "You'll Find a Way" ("Can't pull us under/ You better watch out, run for cover"), but the most famous example opens "Shove It": Seven years after the Res song that invited me to be cooler and smarter than I actually was, Santi White dropped another meaningful "we"— Brooklyn, we go hard — and the phrase was so rousing, such a rallying cry, that Kanye West built a whole banger around it for Jay-Z. — NPR
Say Aha
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Lights Out
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