Born in Philadelphia in 1976, Santi White studied music and African-American studies at Wesleyan University. She then worked in A&R at Epic Records before joining the punk rock band Stiffed, with whom she recorded two albums. In 2008, she released her debut solo album, Santogold; it received several award nominations, including best international female at the Brit awards. She has since released three more albums, including this year’s dancehall-influenced I Don’t Want: The Gold Fire Sessions, released next week on Downtown/Interscope.
1. Art
I found out about this artist because she curated an art show at the Deitch gallery in New York, which my husband had some pieces in. I really love her work. She’s an African American artist and there’s a lot about race, gender and politics in her work, but it’s very bright and colourful and fun-looking. It looks like collage, so it’s playful even though the topics are not. I feel like that’s how I approach things musically, too – I always like that juxtaposition.
2. Documentary
Three Identical Strangers (dir Tim Wardle, 2018)
This sounds like the most interesting movie: it’s a true story about triplets who didn’t know each other existed. I heard about it at a party and I can’t wait to see it because I had twins six months ago, so I’m dealing with the world of multiples right now. So these three don’t know about each other until one of them goes to a new school and everyone is acting like they know who he is. He meets his identical twin, then it’s in the newspaper and that’s where the third triplet sees it. It’s top of my list of movies I want to see.
3. Music
U-Roy
U-Roy is a classic Jamaican artist and one of the original rappers. Basically, he used to chat over other people’s tracks and it started that whole trend of talking over music. As a girl, I didn’t necessarily hear U-Roy’s name early on, but then I started recognising and hearing his voice on a lot of stuff. He worked with all the best – Lee Perry, Bob Marley, Sly & Robbie – and he’s sampled at the beginning of that Dawn Penn song You Don’t Love Me (No, No, No). He’s putting out a new album that I think is really cool.
4. TV
High Maintenance (HBO/Sky Atlantic)
I don’t watch much TV – like I said, I just had babies – so I’ve only seen two episodes of this. It’s about a weed dealer and basically it’s these awkward scenarios where he’s inside people’s houses as he’s delivering. He’s trying to do his job and not get in trouble, but in the episodes I saw people are always asking him to do things that are very uncomfortable, like this girl who ends up grilling him about why he’s a white weed dealer and not in jail, while the black weed dealers are in jail. I thought it was cool.
5. Film
Incredibles 2 (dir Brad Bird, 2018)
I don’t actually like kids’ movies very much, but I particularly identified with this one because the mother was a superhero and that’s what I feel like. Trying to put out a record, with twins and a four-year-old, honestly, sometimes it feels undoable. In this movie, the mum was working and the dad was at home, but staying at home with the kids was harder than saving the world. I happened to see it with two other parents who were actors; I think we all could identify with the working versus parenting challenge.
6. Hobby
Interior design
Since I was a little kid, I remember saving up money to buy furniture for my room. I just really love decorating – if I’m exhausted and I want to relax, I’ll look through fabrics online. We just moved from Brooklyn to LA and it’s a completely different style – in New York we had a lot of gold leaf and Parisian influence, while this house is a lot more modern. Now that I have three children I’m trying to be more practical but still get really beautiful and fun stuff. I like to mix and match, making things that don’t look like they go together go together.
