I’ve made no secret of my audiolust for Brooklyn grime-pop chanteuse (and former punk band Stiffed frontwoman) Santogold, but the new vid for her “LES Artistes,” directed by Nima Nourizadeh, is blowing me away:
Santogold’s heavily related to the stripper-loving Spank Rock scene, sharing some producers, remixers, track appearances, and party bills, although on a much higher intel tip (everyone kind of over “bitches and ho’s” DJ Assault circa 2002 ripoffs say “He-eyyy!”) — and look for many, many tired comparisons to MIA to follow in the wake of the release of her self-titled album Santogold (Downtown), which drops on April 22, and her performance at Coachella this year — because, you know, freaky women artists of color sure are similar. Still, her already-legendary bass-heavy ragga crawler club jam “Creator” has swept people onto the same global-hop dancehall dancefloors as Ms. MIA, and the more like that (and the above) the merrier, say I …
And this quote from a recent NYT article on her is priceless: “You get these images of women in sexy clothes, walking around in, like, panties,” she said. “Even Beyoncé — that’s what it is to be a woman and make music. But now there are all these other women doing cool, interesting things, wearing styles they came up with, and it’s not about being naked.”
Santogold, “Creator” (live at Fader 51 party)