Santigold

Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

Pushkin Industries

Music, Society & Culture

4.5 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2023

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Santigold is an artist who exists at the cross-section of punk, dub, new wave and indie pop. Long frustrated with attempts like these to classify her style, Santi has always been a proud outlier among the restrictive categories used to divide music.

Santi’s anti-establishment bent was in part a reaction to working as an A&R for Epic Records’ black music department. Frustrated with what they categorized as “urban music” in the early aughts, Santi left her job, went home to Philly, and started a punk band called Stiffed. After honing her chops for a few years as a lead singer, Santi released her debut solo album, Santigold in 2008. The album’s lead singles “Creator” and “L.E.S. Artistes” were a revelation when they came out, and led to Santi headlining tours around the world and even opening shows for Bjork, Coldplay, Jay-Z and the Beastie Boys.

Now with three other albums to her credit, including last year’s soul-stirring Spirituals, Santigold is celebrating the 15th anniversary of her debut release. And today she’s expanded her artistic endeavors to include a podcast called Noble Champions where she mines the creative life with friends like Olivia Wilde, Questlove and Yasiin Bey.

On today’s episode Leah Rose talks to Santigold about the unique path she took to build her solo career. Santi also shares why she decided to cancel her tour last year with a heartfelt public letter that shared insight into the financial and emotional toll of touring post-pandemic. She also recalls finding out that she was included in a list of influential black female artists on Beyonce’s “Break My Soul” remix.

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite Santigold songs HERE.

Take the Pushkin Audience Survey and receive a code to redeem a free audiobook: https://bit.ly/3pAAQxZ

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello everyone, Malcolm Gladwell here. Before you hear this episode, I want to let you
0:14.8	know about another podcast that you might be interested in. This season on Revisionist
0:19.8	History, I'm diving into one of the weirdest and most infuriating corners of American
0:25.1	life, guns. Six episodes that will take you all away from the Supreme Court to 17th
0:32.0	century England, to the wilds of Alabama and to the streets of the south side of Chicago.
0:38.3	It's our biggest series yet and one you won't want to miss. You can binge listen to all
0:43.7	six episodes early and add free by subscribing to Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcasts or by visiting
0:50.4	Pushkin.fm slash plus. Or you can listen to the episodes weekly in the Revisionist History
0:57.3	Podcast feed.
1:02.2	Sonti Gold is an artist who exists at the cross section of punk, dub, new wave and indie
1:07.6	pop. Long frustrated with attempts to classify her music, she's always been a proud outlier
1:13.3	among the restrictive categories used to divide music. Sonti Gold's anti-establishment
1:18.6	bent was in part a reaction to working as an A&R for epic records black music department.
1:24.7	Frustrated with what they categorized as urban music in the early yachts, she left her
1:28.6	job, went home to Philly and started a punk band called Stiffed. After honing her skills
1:34.6	for a few years as a lead singer, she released her debut solo album Sonti Gold in 2008.
1:40.8	The album's lead singles creator and LES Artis were a revelation when they came out and
1:46.8	led to Sonti Gold headlining tours around the world and opening shows for Bjork, Cold
1:52.1	Blay, Jay-Z and the Beastie Boys. Now with three more albums to her credit, including
1:58.4	last year's Soul Stirring Spirituals, Sonti Gold is celebrating the 15th anniversary of
2:03.8	her debut release. She's also expanded her artistic endeavors to include a podcast
2:09.1	called Noble Champions, where she mines the creative life with friends like Olivia Wilde,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -562 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Pushkin Industries, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Pushkin Industries and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.