If you’re a fan of Santigold’s timeless bangers: the hazy, anthemic “Disparate Youth” and coolly angst-ridden “L.E.S Artistes,” but have never attended one of her concerts, chances are you’ve been mispronouncing her name. “It’s ‘Sawntigold,’” she tells me over Zoom after I pronounced the first part of her name like I would Santa Claus. “I correct the crowd at my shows.”

Coincidentally, she’s just played the first show of the tour tied to her latest album, Spirituals—though she’s hesitant to call it a tour. “I call them live show dates,” she explains. “A tour to me is months on the road.” This string of performances will be much more relaxed than the traditional full-blown, months-long schlep across the continent. Nonetheless, we’re excited because Santigold is perhaps one of the most dynamic artists, visually and musically, out there, and those live shows offer us a privileged peek into her world. Being on stage in general is something that makes Santigold a bit antsy. She has an incredible ear—“a blessing and a curse”—which makes her, yes, capable of exploring all genres with expert execution. (In her career, she’s dabbled in everything from reggae and neo-soul to alternative rock, and, more recently, spirituals.) But it also makes her highly sensitive to production inconveniences like in-ears, the earpieces musicians wear to keep track of the music as it’s playing in front of an audience.

“I would say like 50% of the time, it’s a real struggle for me,” but, she says of her recent Redondo Beach performance, “this show was so fun because I was sandwiched in between Steel Pulse and Devo, who are my all time favorites. I would’ve gone to the festival just for them.” For Santigold, genre goddess, being slated between a new wave band and a reggae band feels like home.

Growing up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Santigold’s father provided her with a rich foundation of Black music. “I grew up listening to Fela Kuti, Nina Simone, Steel Pulse, John Coltrane,” she says. “It was all Black music in my house.” But the artist has such a perfectly weird and blended sound, I wondered exactly at what point in her past she was exposed to (or corrupted by) other types of music. “By the time I was 11, my sister who was 14, had an insane record collection and it was all Bad Brains, Suicidal Tendencies, Dead Kennedys, Joni Mitchell, and Fun Boy 3. All kinds.” Bingo.

After having spent her school years in chorus, Santigold double majored in music and African American studies at Wesleyan University. Only two years post-undergrad, she procured a co-writer and executive producer credit for her work in How I Do, the debut album of fellow Philly-native, Res. Working on that project made her realize that she had her own sound, “[How I Do] wasn’t exactly how I wanted it to turn out because it wasn’t my record. At the end of that, I was like, ‘I want to do something that sounds like what I wanna hear in my head.’”

So she reached out to friend, professional skater, and “also like, the best musician hands down,” Chuck Treece, and said, “I just want to make this record, Chuck, but I never want to perform live.” Treece recommended she take things one step at a time. They formed a punk band and named it Stiffed—and, yes, she did eventually get on stage. “It was the most fun ever,” she says. “I pretty much learned how to perform by performing [punk]. It was so free and so raw. There are no rules, no technology, and no dancing. You just show up with what you’re wearing and perform.”

Once she felt more comfortable in front of a crowd, Santigold decided it was time to get out of Philly, “You can’t really grow that big in Philly. Especially if you’re an artist like me who doesn’t fit into any [genre].”

But you can in Brooklyn.

In 2005, she moved to New York and it was there that she came into her own as an adult and artist. Santigold’s suavely stitched-together sound meshed well with the Brooklynites and the general momentum of the indie sleaze era. “I loved it. I loved it so much,” she says of the late aughts and early twenty-tens. “It was really magical, it was the opposite of now. It seemed hopeful. We had Obama, music was great, fashion was insane. Everything became really artistic again. For five seconds, art was valued.” 

It’s been a decade, a Trump presidency, and a pandemic since that sweat-slicked epoch but Santigold maintains her commitment to having actual fun with the work she does. In collaboration with photographer and videographer Frank Ockenfels—“a brilliant genius,” she says—she filmed five music videos for Spirituals in just two days.

“When you find another true artist in this day and age, who actually cares about art first… you just get to play and be wild. Like one day I’d show up and I’d be like, ‘Ah! I’m a monster with crazy outfits and claws! And he’d be like, ‘This is amazing.’” If you take a look at the music videos for “Shake” and “High Priestess” the presence of play and whimsy is unmissable. 

These days, Santigold is playing live shows, but she’s also co-parenting three kids and is proud of the fact that they don’t have iPads, though her six-year-old has taken to ordering things off of Amazon sans permission. “The other day I had Spiderman Web-Shooters show up at my house,” she says, still shocked at the gall of her youngest. “I said, ‘It’s going back.’”

She’s also recently single and actively dating, which has proven to be an enriching experience, especially after 19 years of marriage. “I don’t think you should have to sacrifice a part of who you are to be in a relationship. But I think we often do. I feel like I’m reclaiming so many parts of myself that I had to set aside as a mother, as a wife, and it’s really [been] a beautiful reawakening.” 

And, on another relatable note, she’s embarrassed to be intermittently gluten-free. At the beginning of our conversation, her Not So Fried Chicken Sandwich with gluten-free bread from Mendocino Farms arrived, which just goes to show that it’s true that all cool girls have tummy issues. Even icons like Sawntigold.

This story appears in the pages of V149: now available for purchase!

Photography Michelle Gonzales

Fashion Alexander-Julian Gibbson

Makeup Setsuko Tate

Hair Sean Fears (Opus Beauty)

Photo assistants Bryan Martinez, Andrew Park

Stylist assistant Parker Harwood

Location Vision Studios