Cents & Sensibility: Santigold tells Hot Press about her latest album 99 Cents

I’m full of jitters waiting to interview Santi “Santigold” White. Specifically, I’m worried about mangling her name. Representatives of her record label have been in touch with a polite reminder that Santigold is pronounced “Sonti-gold”. The artist herself has emphasised the point in a Tweet, implying journalists who put their feet in it can expect short shrift.

The thing is, if you’re Irish and didn’t grow up in the leafier reaches of south Dublin (and/or work in PR), “Sonti-gold” doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. When I practice out loud it sounds like a bad Ryle Nugent impersonation. This is terrifying!

Thus it is with a tummy full of butterflies that I greet “Sontigold”. But – way-hey – I manage to not completely butcher her name. Either that or she’s too polite to point it out. That’s one of the surprises about White – though her image is of a highkicking, non-fool-suffering pop ninja, face to face she’s a sweetheart. Funny, deprecating and entirely up for laughing at your jokes. Maybe the Santi/ Sonti thing is an elaborate wind up.

There’s certainly plenty of humour on new LP 99 Cents, no matter that the record also functions as broadside against 21st century turbo-capitalism and how it has turned us all, pop stars and punters alike, into commodities and consumers. No, wait... come back! The point is made with considerable wit via the sleeve shot of Santi squeezed into zipblock bag, ready to be plucked from the shelf and plonked into an enormous shopping basket.

“This is my third album. I was determined it was going to be an enjoyable process,” says the 39-year-old Philadelphia native (and graduate of super preppy Wesleyan University in Connecticut). “Doing the cover was super enjoyable. I climbed
into the bag and literally shrink-rapped myself. I’m always up for something like that. This was the most fun I’d ever had working on a record.”

One or two minor events did conspire to alter the trajectory of the project, she allows. Such as the arrival two months in of her first child, a little boy she named Radek (Santi is married to musician and snow-boarder Trevor Andrew, with whom she shares a smart Brooklyn townhouse). She took eight weeks maternity leave and returned to the studio inspired by the bundle of joy at home.

“When you leave the house to go to work you want to carry that energy and positivity you are feeling with you. [Being a new parent] brought a brightness and lightness.”

Complementing this new-found harmony with the universe, Santi assembled a high-powered team of producers, including Rostam Batmanglij (recently departed from Vampire Weekend), HitBoy (producer of Kanye and Jay-Z collaboration ‘Niggas in Paris’) and TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek.

“Working with a lot of people can cause anxieties,” she says. “I was eager to avoid that. I didn’t want the record to be heavy or dark.”

She has a unique relationship with her studio collaborators. Rather than allow them call the shots, she uses their vision at a springboard. Ultimately she is the one in control. “I like to have as wide a perspective as possible. Sometimes one producer is great at one thing and another brings a different element. I use them as a glue to put everything together. Through it all I have a clear sense what I want to achieve.”

White double majored in music and African-American studies at Wesleyan college and got her break in the music industry working in the a&r department of Epic Records. She was meanwhile
earning her spurs as a performer singing with the punk band Stiffed. This led to a solo record deal and her much-hyped 2007 debut Santogold (in 2009 she changed her stage name under pressure from the director of the 1985 movie Santo Gold’s Blood Circus).

We are speaking on the morning Kanye West has released (sort of) his new album, The Life Of Pablo on Jay-Z’s Tidal platform. Santi and Kanye go back a bit. She toured with him in the early days; both were featured artists on NASA’s ‘Gifted’. Speaking recently, however, she was not impressed by the hooplah surrounding Pablo - or Kanye’s initial decision to make it only available via Tidal.

“What did Kanye announce …? You can only stream his record on Tidal?” she stated. “Do you want my real answer? I don’t really care (about Kanye) to be honest with you. Releasing a record has become so much about anything but music, it’s about getting attention.”

The complicated relationship between capitalism and art is something to which White has given considerable thought. In an era when the music industry isn’t much of an industry any more, performers are required to become their own brand ambassador. You’re endlessly pitching the best version of yourself to the world – a process a heartfelt and sincere creative such a White finds draining and, frankly, a bit beside the point. You’re supposed to give your all to your art – not to your Twitter feed.

“I was expressing the conflict I feel within me about this stuff,” she says. “We are at a point in the creative culture where, as an artist, I am having to constantly market and sell myself. That’s strange and not natural. The narcism and hyper-consummation of the culture is something I wanted to talk about. I have a message in these songs. But I was determined to present it so that people could more easily digest what I was saying.”

99 Cents is out now. Santigold headlines Body and Soul Festival in June.