[Shaun]

Youtube video

Here's "Disparate Youth", a new one from Santigold off her forthcoming sophomore album Master of My Make-Believe. According to Santi's YouTube page, the song will be available on iTunes tomorrow in the U.S., and will be available in the UK on April 8 on an EP that includes remixes from Switch, the 2 Bears and Amateur Best. Have a listen below, and watch the accompanying animated clip, via Disco Naïveté.

[LaLaLand]

"Big Mouth" kind of worried me a bit that her new album would be a bit too 'out there' but this is classic Santi! Love it, can't wait for the album.

[Fetch The Bolt Cutters]

oh god this is brilliant

[Tom4784]

It's pretty good but it hasn't grown on me yet.

[Jords]

I like I like

Although, Big Mouth >

[Fetch The Bolt Cutters]

1,040 likes, 12 dislikes

[Shaun]

Oh good I was worried she'd inherited a bunch of haters because of her GaGa/Katy/Ke$ha disses on 'Big Mouth'. They've forgotten then

This is pretty inoffensive though. I wouldn't say I love it but it's nice, and it's interesting, and has a good sound.

[Smithy]

I like it it's a bit, idk, bland? I don't think thats the word but it doesn't really go anywhere

[Fetch The Bolt Cutters]

album is due out on may 1st

[Jords]

Originally Posted by Scott

album is due out on may 1st

frj34hjf-24hjfr09h439g5fh /niall

[Fetch The Bolt Cutters]

im crying

[Shaun]

Let's cut to it: Why did it take Santi White four years to follow up her breakthrough debut album? Well, there was the writer's block. And crippling self-doubt. And her choice to stay out on tour an extra year to solidify her fanbase. And a management shift to Jay-Z's Roc Nation. And a label switch from the relatively small Atlantic subsidiary Downtown to Atlantic proper. Plus, she's a perfectionist.

When we meet up at Atlantic's midtown Manhattan office, White is thinking about the right font to use on her new album's cover. The singer scrolls through about 15 vintage sleeves she's saved onto her iPhone-- Talking Heads' Naked, the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's, the NSFW version of Hendrix's Electric Ladyland-- in an effort to conjure some font inspiration. She's still undecided: "Everything takes a long time to get right, you know?"

Luckily, most of the important decisions about her forthcoming LP have already been made. Her new album Master of My Make Believe is out May 1 and features production from tried-and-true Santigold collaborators Switch, Diplo, and John Hill, along with new studio partners Q-Tip, Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Nick Zinner, TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek, Ricky Blaze, Greg Kurstin, and Boys Noize.

White's recent video for "Big Mouth" nabbed headlines with its apparent disses of pop stars Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. The slights were especially curious from someone who's written songs with Top 40 acts like Ashlee Simpson and Christina Aguilera. Indeed, White's relationship with pop and celebrity is much more complex than the video lets on.

Wearing black leggings marked with images of ferocious, gold-chained dogs and a white, button-up top, she gamely fielded our questions on that topic and many others including the new album's revolutionary bent, the death-defying speedboat cruise that helped shake her out of writer's block, and why a recent music award show made her cry.

Pitchfork: I was surprised by the "Big Mouth" video, which seemed to be drawing a distinct line between yourself and pop stars like Lady Gaga.

Santigold: That was actually not intended in the way everyone thought. I am not that familiar with Lady Gaga or Katy Perry, I swear to God. I missed that. I can't say the director missed that, though-- it might have been his brilliant interpretation of my song, but we never discussed it.

I'm disappointed with the state of music right now, but it's not really about anybody specific. I think there's a lack of true art, and the fanfare is valued over actual substance. It's like you don't have to make good music to be ****ing huge. Now, I'll say that, and all the little kids will be like, "**** you. I hope you die." [laughs] Don't let them think you dissed Lady Gaga!

I watched a music awards show last year and started crying afterwards. I just felt really sad that people go along with stupid wack ****. I'm sorry, but LMFAO performed at the Super Bowl? Aren't they a joke band? That type of **** makes me cry. I'm like, "Really?"

So, lyrically, "Big Mouth" is about being able to have a vision, stand behind it, and then actually deliver. Some of my songs are just fun while others are deeply spiritual to me, and "Big Mouth" is a little bit of both. It's like: "This is my territory; this is my turf."

Pitchfork: When Switch and Diplo worked on your first album, they weren't that well-known. But now Switch is working with Beyoncé and Diplo is doing songs with Usher. It's like pop has caught up to what you guys were doing.

S: When my first record came out it was some weirdo **** on the side. Five years later, it's mainstream. It's cool because maybe more people will be ready to hear what we're doing now. But it's also challenging because I keep having to come up with better **** with way less.

I remember when Switch went to work on Beyoncé's record. I actually had done some writing with Beyoncé before that-- I played her [Major Lazer's] "Pon De Floor" video and she was like, "That's amazing." But I was working with Switch at the time and I was just like, "OK Switch, we're working tomorrow?" And he was like, "Actually, I'm working with Beyoncé." And I called up [Roc Nation president] Jay Brown and said, "I introduced you to Switch," and he was like, "Loyalty to the Roc." I was like, "Loyalty to the Roc?! All right, will you manage me?" [laughs]

That's not really how it went down, but I switched management to Roc Nation several months later. Obviously, Jay-Z is a total visionary, and they have a great sense of how brands should work now. Because music is a brand-- I'm a brand, among other things. I mean, records don't really sell much. I'm an artist who wants to do many things.

Pitchfork: So did you introduce Beyoncé to "Pon De Floor", which she later sampled on "Run the World (Girls)"?

S: I'm the first person that showed her the video for sure. Beyoncé's awesome. You can see her trying to grow and push boundaries while not leaving her audience behind. She wants to learn what else is going on in music, while [people like me] all want to be huge pop stars. It's like: "Let's switch!" [laughs] Well, not really. I've thought about that a lot, and I could easily be like, "Can someone write me a huge pop song so I can be like ****ing Rihanna?" I tried writing with a big pop writer for this album, but I just can't do it. I have to write my lyrics. I'm only going to do music if I enjoy it and I'm proud of what I'm doing.

Nowadays, people just churn out these records, but they're not really making art. They're making pop records. There's a difference. And I think a lot of young people who didn't grow up with a whole lot of real music don't know the difference.

Pitchfork: Well, I think there's an art to making pop music, too.

S: I love some pop music and I've always said that I want to make pop. But I'm talking about the songs that are pre-fabricated by hit makers. I'm not saying those songs don't have any value, but there's a differentiation between that and what I do. I shouldn't be expected to turn out something at the same rate as if I wasn't writing my own stuff and really trying to push boundaries. You have to grow to be able to do something different.

Pitchfork: Are there any pop artists out now that you like?

S: Adele is really great. She's got an amazing voice that's really unique and special and very real. I like that. And I miss that. Nowadays, everyone has to have an angle, everyone's marketing themselves constantly. You're under a ****ing microscope, and that's very unnatural, so no one wants to just be themselves.

At the same time, the internet and the blog world makes you put up a shell. That's another thing I found interesting and a bit hard after touring for two years: You come back and you're supposed to instantly be able to tap into the deepest part of yourself, but you've put up this wall that does not come down immediately. And, for the second album, you start thinking, "I fooled everyone. I suck. I can't do it again." [laughs]

With the last album, [producer] John Hill was kind of a partner, but I was more on my own this time. I worked with a lot of producers, but I would walk out of the studio with my drives and piece things together myself. That's how I do it. The songs are like collages-- a little bit from this person, a little bit from someone else. I had to trust my vision.

There was a while when nobody was really present: my manager wasn't present, my label wasn't present, I didn't have an engineer working constantly. I was feeling beat down, my body was falling apart, I was getting sick all the time. So I started doing transcendental meditation. It fixed everything, it was amazing. I went to this woman in L.A. who's like 89 years old and has been into transcendental mediation from the beginning-- she went to India with the Maharishi and wrote this book called All You Need Is Love, because she was there when the Beatles were there. She gave me my mantra. I got my confidence back, I was calm.

Pitchfork: Was there a turning point as far as your creativity while making this album?

S: In May of 2010, I took a trip to Jamaica with Switch, Diplo, and John Hill. It was supposed to be the most productive trip-- I was supposed to finish my record in those two weeks. But it totally did not go down like that at all. Everybody was in a weird place. It was when everybody's career started taking off in different directions and we weren't the same four people that we had been last time. And, since we're all generally friends, you have to deal with a lot more emotional bull****-- you can get great music out of those friendships sometimes, but it can also be difficult. Still, that trip actually had the hugest impact on my record.

I was having writer's block; I just did not have lyrics. Last time, it was coming right off of my dad dying and I hadn't had a creative outlet in a minute and it poured out of me. This time, I hadn't figured out the answers that I needed to write the songs. But the lyrics started coming out in Jamaica. I went out on this tiny speedboat with Diplo-- we were flying, no life jackets, it was so dangerous. I'm just holding on to the metal bars-- if I flew off, I would have gotten run over and died. But I was like, "This is so much fun!"

This speedboat had a little sound system, and it was playing old reggae, and it was making this distorted, blown-out, grinding sound over the ocean. And I was like, "This is what I want my record to feel like." That mood, and that adrenaline, and all of that beauty stayed with me through making the rest of the music.

Pitchfork: How would you describe the overall theme of this album?

S: Most of the songs are about being in control of your world. That was a really important message for me as an artist in this process, but also in the world right now. We're in a weird place. There are so many riots and rebellions going on. It seems like a truth is coming out. Like, "Disparate Youth" is about the youth creating their own world and not having to take this broken **** that's handed to them. I played my record for Jay-Z a while ago, and he was like, "It sounds like a revolution." [laughs]

Pitchfork: Were you personally inspired by the recent uprisings around the world?

S: Yeah, how can you not be? You're watching all of these people who are ready to die for what they believe in, like, "We're not ****ing taking this **** anymore." But that's too hard to look at, so everybody's just watching reality TV, which is totally wrong. Celebrity is the stupidest **** now. It means nothing and ruins everything. I got out of the car the other day at the airport, and this guy's like, "Are you one of the Real Housewives?" [laughs]

Pitchfork: Is it tough for you to balance the desire for success with wariness toward fame?

S: Well, I never wanted to perform in front of people. I'm not all the way comfortable now, but I kinda like it. So you take someone like that and throw me out in front of people, and then there's all this stupid horrible on the internet-- it ****s up your confidence. Look at Whitney Houston. Look at Michael Jackson. Look at everybody. I'm not saying I'm at that level at all, but people don't have sympathy for people they think have made it in any way. They're not even given the courtesy of human feelings. Nobody wants to hear it-- it's like, "Poor you." So learning to exist as an artist, you just have to learn to not care what people think.

I want people to like my music, but I don't make my music for other people. If nobody heard my music, I would still make it. It's my life force, it's what I have to do to feel like a person. My purpose is to inspire people to get to know themselves, and then they can get to know the world in a different way. When I see art that I love, I get this tingly feeling, almost like you're in love. The flutter in your chest. That spark is what changes a person. It's the whole point of existence. I would love it if my music could make anybody feel like that.

THIS BITCH

[Fetch The Bolt Cutters]

goddess

[Jords]

Santi

[Shaun]

Santigold has offered a look at the cover of her forthcoming album, Master of My Make-Believe (out May 1 on Downtown/Atlantic via The New York Times' T Style blog. The cover, shot by photographer Jason Schmidt, pictures four incarnations of Santi White.

Santi appears in the center of the photograph as a Mafia boss, which she described to the Times as "some sort of ruler in my own reality." At the character's sides, she appears twice as twin guards, donning gold bodysuits designed specifically for the shoot by Alexander Wang. And hovering above, Santi #4 is a painting by Kehinde Wiley, inspired by 18th century artist Joshua Reynolds' "Portrait of an Officer".

Youtube video

[Fetch The Bolt Cutters]

[Jords]

Hate when album covers dont have the title on them

I like it a lot though.

[Shaun]

The music video's on Pitchfork... but not YouTube yet

http://pitchfork.com/news/45587-vide...sparate-youth/

[Fetch The Bolt Cutters]

Youtube video

****ing amazing

[Shaun]

it's so summery

[Niall]

I love this sfm

[Joelle.]

This is something else!

-downloads quicker than immediately-

[Jords]

This new album is gonna kill

[Fetch The Bolt Cutters]

Tracklisting

GO! (feat. Karen O) (Produced by Switch, Santigold, John Hill, Nick Zinner, and Q-Tip)
Disparate Youth (Produced by Ricky Blaze)
God From The Machine
Fame
Freak Like Me
This Isn't Our Parade
The Riot's Gone
Pirate In The Water
The Keepers
Look At These Hoes
Big Mouth (Produced by Buraka Som Sistema)
Deluxe Version:
Never Enough
Go! (Switch Remix)
Disparate Youth (The 2 Bears Remix)

[Shaun]

Oh I'm glad Go! is being put on it, that was fieeeeeerce.