SOTW: Santogold and Bangers & Cash

Isn’t it wonderful when music makes you study? Santi White, the Phili-raised, Wesleyan-educated and Brooklyn-based vocal force that is Santogold, has inspired a return to many a smudged eyeliner anthem of the past. There’s lots of pleasure and pain to be had while perusing the stacks for that vocal grain of hung over eyes, late night shifts, the bump that got them home, rain walking, being too broke for makeup remover, or too confident to care. Don’t let my toxic litany here let you moralize its sound, which can neither be pegged as post-cry or just off a good time. These anthems bear voices that have seen and heard a few things. And yet, they are farthest away from being worn out. These voices are appraising, wise, know how to put things right, and model a kind of radical uplift that could be fun to get behind.


This week, spending time with White’s debut album has also meant getting reacquainted with Gladys Horton of the Marvelettes; Cherie Currie’s work with the Runaways; Robert Smith in “Pictures of You.” The most pleasurable companion voice has proved to be Terri Nunn (of Berlin-the superduo from California’s very own Orange County) on “The Metro."

I rehearse all this not to mire her sound to the work (albeit under-recognized) of others, something too often done with gifted young women artists of color. These upstarts are perpetually at the mercy of comparison, who they’ve copped, etc., (i.e. note the persistent girl-on-girl/girl vs. girl questions posed to Santogold and M.I.A.). White reminds us that we need to keep seriously rethinking how we write about influence. She is part of the collective fist that has been raised: can critics 86 the “genre-transgressor” stuff already? All that does is further police those who, to their minds, are not where they are supposed to be.

The more I listen to Santogold, the more I’m humbled by how much original, creative work is in this thing-and how much work we’re urged to do on our own. Referencing her with the voices of others is not a matter of: where have I heard this before? But, how does she make things different? How does she work her voice that way? Her voice, so unique from one track to the next has a virtuosic flexibility that’s enough to surprise on almost every turn of the album. From the low-and-slow dynamic of “I’m a Lady” to the strident ska-bend of “You’ll Find a Way,” you can actually feel the hours in the studio, the time taken to work out these bold moves and their making anew with each passing take. She’s a generous artist. We’re even offered a few additions to the deep trajectory of outbursts in music, like the howls on “Anne” and the eh-eh-eh’s of “Unstoppable.”

Here’s her L.E.S. Artistes:


Brave the hipsters (after all, she has to) and check out Santogold in Central Park on July 20th.

In the midst of the foregoing, I was nudged by Joshua Jelly Schapiro for some thoughts on Spank Rock. This eventually led me to Benny Blanco and Naeem Juwan as Bangers and Cash.

ok.

This means a move to the literal bottom of the state of Florida—and by state, I mean both a recognized territory and a condition. When will the “Miami sound” garner as much non-ironic respectability as the “Phili sound” or “Baltimore sound” in the history of musical experimentalism? Beyond our city's cameo in Wham’s Careless Whispers video, there are those of us who’d always thought that our regional musics would sneak us in the backdoor of modernity. Remember all of the albums made possible by South Florida’s Criteria Studios?

Here’s to the dubbed efforts of Bangers and Cash’s “B.O.O.T.A.Y” who try to engage all those regional sounds at once. The song is featured on a five song EP (I so love it like that) that pays homage to 2 Live Crew in their As Nasty as They Wanna Be era—and to the larger Miami Bass funplex (which I last wrote about here). In some ways (see the album cover, video, and myspacephernalia), I’m not so sure about how successful they are about spanking the pale ass of hipster irony. Thankfully, there are two featured spots which take a page straight from Anquette’s book. Spoken nasties are unfurled by Santogold and Illivia. Hear them for yourself (also hear Illivia's use of Serge Prokofiev on her myspace page). Let's just say they righteously update how naughty girls need love too:


This track puts some memorystuff above ground. It reminds me of that grinding time spent in the parking lot of Luke’s during the Miami Beach of the early 1990s (owned by the bass and space impresario Luke Campbell). We would do some and some more of that later after heading over to the goth club down the way. Lots of Downward Spiraling. No "genre-transgressing" involved, just another smudged eyeliner and under-aged night out on the town.

Throw the P,
(ATV)