How Santigold Is Taking On Our Internet Obsession

Can't Get Enough Of Myself, the first single from Santigold's third album, 99c, is a shrine to narcissism, a four-minute pop mockery of the self-obsessed selfie era. In it, Santi White — Santigold herself — plays a character with their own "brand of vainglory", existing at the centre of a digitised world. If you watch the single's regular video clip, there's a host of cameos from people like Andy Samberg, Olivia Wilde, Alexander Wang, Pharrell Williams and Jay-Z. But, if you play the 'interactive' video, the face in those cameos is your own, covertly accessed via your webcam, and inserted into the narrative.

"Watching it with people for the first time was a blast," says White from her home in Brooklyn. "Almost always, the look on their faces was the funniest thing ever. They'd go 'Wait, when did you record me?' Even people who I barely know, that there was no way I could've recorded them and put them in my video, they thought that I'd literally recorded them and made them the star of my video."

"They'd go 'Wait, when did you record me?' Even people who I barely know, that there was no way I could've recorded them and put them in my video."

99c marks the first Santigold album since 2012's Master Of My Make-Believe, the follow-up to her beloved debut LP, 2008's Santogold. White knows that four years between LPs is an eternity in the hyper-speed internet era, but she wants to operate outside of the current demands for constant content generation. "It's an era where people are just putting out content every year without a break," White says. "It's challenging for me because I don't work like that. If you've got a whole bunch of different writers and producers putting the songs together for you, you can make a record like that every year. But if you're sitting down and making a record where every song you have to come up with ideas from scratch, you can't work at that pace. I don't work like that. And I'm definitely not one of those social media people who's going to be in your face all the time. I don't document my days. I'm not a Snapchatter. I just try and live in the moment. I have to try to remember to put stuff on social media; it's just not my style honestly. I do find it challenging to navigate this climate."

2016's social media climate is at the centre of 99c. White writes from her experiences — as both artist and human being — which have been almost entirely in the music industry: first as a record company A&R, then a behind-the-scenes songwriter/producer, then as a solo act. On Master Of My Make-Believe, she wrote angry songs about stage-managed pop stars and the commodification of music. On 99c, she takes that further, the album about stage-managed lives and the commodification of everything.

"I don't document my days. I'm not a Snapchatter."

"Nothing's off limits for commodification, now," offers White. "Everything is a product, everything is marketing. Even the way people date now, it's really like: 'Buy me! Swipe if you like it!' People are doctoring their images, thinking of themselves as a product. Everyone is so aware of their brand. Like: 'What's my brand? What am I about?' And then they market that: for followers, for likes."

And, in turn, White continues, "Insecurity has become this cultural phenomenon. People are feeling more insecure, more self-conscious, and less self-confident. People need that constant, empty validation from the internet — this validation from strangers that you can't see, and won't ever know. That's a really interesting and important change to note in our cultural climate, especially as it relates to the human condition and the position of the Earth. [99c] is not just talking about music, it's talking about people and culture and how we think and where we're at. It's exploring the cultural phenomenon of that, and what it means, and where that's going. But, I wanted to explore the absurdity of it, the black comedy of it."

And so, on songs like Can't Get Enough Of Myself — or the wry, Rostam Batmanglij-produced Chasing Shadows, where careerist self-assurance is tinged with self-critique — Santigold tackles the global topic du jour with a lightness of touch. "I knew I could make this fun and light-hearted, I knew that I'd be able to get away with it. Like, think of how much time we're wasting: we could be fixing the world, but instead we're checking for likes every two minutes. If you lecture people about that in a heavy-handed way, it's going to feel like a chore. You have to find a way to start these huge important conversations in a way that's engaging. Because these are things we really need to talk about. Look at us in the States right now, we've got this reality star running for President. And it's looking real grim. People are really confused about the lines between reality and entertainment right now, and it's really dangerous."