‘Spirituals’: Santigold’s latest album rose from pandemic resilience

Musician Santigold’s latest album features a song that seems perfect for lying in a hammock on a beach. The pop star sings a jaunty melody over the breezy patter of hand drums and a reggaeton synthetic bass line. But a closer listen shatters the idyllic illusion. The song, titled “No Paradise,” has lyrics that describe a populace suffering from systemic oppression. Yet it isn’t entirely bleak. It includes a recurring refrain: “There’s power in our struggle.” 

“The power is from the growth that takes place in hardship,” explains Santigold (whose birth name is Santi White) in a recent Zoom audio interview. 

Her latest album, “Spirituals,” which landed earlier this month, is a testament to fortitude. It’s the sixth release by the Los Angeles-based artist who first made a splash with her 2008 debut, “Santogold,” a synthesis of indie rock, hip-hop, electronica, reggae, and new wave pop. 

“Spirituals” was birthed during the 2020 lockdowns. It was, she recalls, a dark and heavy period in which she was in survival mode. 

“You get knocked down,” she says. “Just the strength that it takes to get back up, you’re learning about your own resilience as a human being and that you can actually make it through.”

Getting beyond writer’s block 

Even before the lockdown, Santigold had been struggling with writer’s block. The words used to come easily – whole songs written in the space of 10 minutes. The hit-maker behind songs such as “L.E.S. Artistes” and “Disparate Youth” is a sought-after collaborator, working with the likes of David Byrne, Jay-Z, Devo, and Tyler, the Creator. During the pandemic she was buoyed by the unexpected gift of being invited to record a duet on reggae pioneer U-Roy’s final album, “Solid Gold.”

“She has such a brilliant emotive quality,” write the album’s married producers, Zak Starkey (drummer for The Who) and Sharna “Sshh” Liguz, in a joint statement provided by their publicist. “She’s punk rock, but soulful with authenticity and diversity that we admire and vibe off in a big way. It was awesome to have her collaborate on ‘Man Next Door’ with U-Roy. Her vocals were the perfect blend of haunting beauty to the big toast of Daddy U-Roy.”

Santigold’s battle to create her own music was affected by looking after 2-year-old twins and a 6-year-old son. The closure of schools during the pandemic compounded the struggle. 

“It felt suffocating, you know, just morning after night ... just cooking, cleaning, changing diapers,” says Santigold. “No time to think. No time to even shower.”

Feeling increasingly disconnected from her artistic side, Santigold fought the urge to panic. She recalled a Joni Mitchell interview about fallow periods in which songwriters need time to gather new experiences and perspectives. Her creative pilot light hadn’t gone out. The events of 2020 – the fear of disease, wildfires that colored the skies dark orange, and news reports of Black people killed by police – turned that flicker into a flame. 

Heeding the urge to write, Santigold made a deal with her husband. She would cook dinner and then, while he and the children were eating and cleaning up afterward, she would go off and write. The songwriter immersed herself in a flow of inspiration.

“As an artist, when I create, often it just requires me to move myself out of the way so that I can receive ideas and messages from a higher version of myself or even, you know, the universe,” she says.

Santigold had planned a North American tour to support the new album starting in October. But today she announced that she has canceled all her shows. In her interview with the Monitor earlier in the month, she said that touring has become unsustainable since the pandemic due to a combination of inflation and a glut of acts touring at the same time.

“How could I release Spirituals, an album about honoring yourself and refusing to cross your own boundaries, and not take this opportunity to do just that for myself?” she said in a letter to fans on her website. 

Her songs on “Spirituals” often focus on resilience in adverse circumstances. The first track on the album, “My Horror,” addresses the instinct to escape life’s challenges through video games, drugs, or social media. Santigold believes that difficult times are an opportunity to ask oneself, “What change am I afraid of?”

“The way through that is for everybody to just do the personal work at an individual level. And a lot of the work is within our bodies, learning to honor the discomfort as a tool for evolution,” says the songwriter. “Whether you’re talking about human beings on this Earth, or Black people in this country, we have shown over and over again that we do have what we need to keep going. We’ve seen the resilience.”

An album title with meaning

That’s why Santigold titled her album “Spirituals.” It’s a nod to the form of singing pioneered by enslaved women. 

“Making this music was a transcendental experience,” says the artist. “It allowed me to kind of escape the physical environment through the music and just experience a bit of freedom and also some beauty and light to move towards. And that’s pretty much what the job of original Negro spirituals was. ... That’s what the songs did for me.”