twelve twelve
daily dos
thu 12/11/2008
Lil' Wayne, Santogold and Metallica are just some of the artists who made it on to Rolling Stone's "Best albums of 2008" list.
or go home
daily dos
mon 12/1/2008
(image by richt/tlobf via flickr)
Listen to "Brooklyn Go Hard" a new track from Jay-Z, featuring Santogold and produced by Kanye West.
Santogold vs. M.I.A.
versus
mon 8/18/2008
| name | Santi White. | Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam. |
| hometown | Philadelphia, PA. | Hounslow, London. |
| born in | 1976. | 1977. |
| what's in a name | Taken from an infamous '80s infomercial selling "Santo Gold" jewelry. | Stands for Missing In Acton and Missing In Action. |
| style | New wave, pop, electro and dub fusion. | World beat, hip hop and electro fusion. |
| previous gig | A&R representative for Epic Records and lead singer of punk band Stiffed. | Visual artist and music video director. |
| breakthrough track | L.E.S. Artistes. | Galang. |
| as heard on | Converse and Bud Light Lime beer commercials. | Pineaple Express movie trailer and soundtrack. |
| young poets | "Me, I'm a creator, thrill is to make it up, the rules I break, got me a place, up on the radar, me, I'm a taker, know what the stakes are, can't roll it back, it's understood, got to play our cards." - Creator. | "I fly like paper, get high like planes, if you catch me at the border I got visas in my name,If you come around here, I make 'em all day, I get one down in a second if you wait." - Paper Planes. |
| killer collabo | Julian Casablancas and N.E.R.D. | Missy Elliot |
| produced by | Mark Ronson, Diplo, John Hill and Switch. | Richard X, Diplo, Timbaland and Switch. |
| in their own words | "It's racist (laughs). It's totally racist. Everyone is just so shocked that I don't like R&B. Why does R&B keep coming into my interviews? It's pissing me off." - Santogold | "And I love hip-hop. I grew up on that shit. I don't wanna say anything bad about it. But by the time I got to it I felt like it was too late. I wanted realism but that was difficult." - M.I.A. |
| most recent release | Santogold. | Kala. |
| the critics | The Onion's A.V. Club: "Santogold manages to weave together a strange amalgam of tracks that sound almost nothing alike, yet are unmistakably part of the same whole. Santogold's relentless disregard for genre boundaries in the service of a stellar pop song is the real glue that holds the album together." | Rolling Stone: "There's a resolute sarcasm, a weariness and defiant determination, a sense of pleasure carved out of work – articulated by the lyrics, embodied by the music. A riot of human, musical and mechanical sounds bubbles underneath these tracks." |
| webprops | 69,279 friends on official MySpace. | 331,768 on official MySpace. |
| best video moment | Becoming digital wallpaper in Lights Out. | Dancing in front of digital wallpaper in Boyz. |
Santogold
whodat
mon 5/19/2008
Santi White, aka Santogold, remembers she was so nervous being the only Black kid in her class that on her first day at school she hid in a corner. She's not hiding anymore.
The 32-year-old Philadelphia native is being hailed as the artist to watch in 2008 by hipsters and mainstream critics, alike. Combining Jamaican reggae with British New Wave and American rock, Santogold is making room on the dance floor for ladies who are sexy – because they're smart. As she puts it: "it's not about being naked."
A graduate of Wesleyan University and a record producer, songwriter (Ashlee Simpson, Lily Allen) and former label talent scout, White first got in front of the mic as the lead singer of the Philadelphia punk band The Stiffed. You can hear traces of that group's Straight Jackers on Santogold's upbeat mix-up Say Aha – and for good reason: her former bandmate John Hill is her current studio collaborator.
Where the white British singer Amy Winehouse borrows her vocal accents from the American (Black) South, Santogold often borrows from the British to make her sometimes hip hop, always pop vocals cut through the mix. Laid over thinner tracks, White's voice and diction might come across as grating, but the music on Santogold is as rich and deep as a 12-inch thick chocolate bar.
On the patient L.E.S. Artistes, the album's opening track, White's hot, strutting lyrics play over a cool bed of synthesizers. The previously mentioned "Say Aha" crams together the upbeat of reggae, an achingly sweet vocal bridge (think Bollywood meets Blondie) and the raucous energy of post-punk. Fans of the British troublemaker M.I.A. might cry "biter" when they hear Santogold's Creator, but the track was put together by FreQ Nasty and Switch, one of M.I.A.'s chief producers. (The song is catchy enough to sell Bud Light Lime on television.)
The now Brooklyn-based Santogold, who last year opened for Bjork at some of America's biggest arenas, is currently on tour in Europe. She'll probably take over the U.S. sometime this Fall.
Recommended for anyone who was ever disappointed with Gwen Stefani and/or is bored with Beyonce.
Recommended tracks (iTunes)
Lucy Says:
