With a hotly anticipated debut album, genre-bending New Yorker SANTOGOLD speaks to ADRIAN POTTS about the FBI bugging her mother’s car, being compared to MIA and why you won’t catch her mixing with Brooklyn hipsters.

You’d be hard pressed to find a more buzzed and blogged about new artist at present than Santogold. With her debut album recently minted, Santogold, real name Santi White, sits in her Brooklyn apartment on a spring day, delivering her thoughts at a cracking speed. “These interviews are all backing-up,” she frets, “I’m trying to talk quickly but I’m scared I’m gonna misrepresent myself, you know?”

As far as hip credentials go, Santogold has them in spades. She collaborated on her album with a roll call of in-demand DJs and producers including Diplo, Switch and FreQ Nasty, Amy Winehouse’s producer Mark Ronson lists her as a good friend (“She looks after my dog when I’m away from New York,” he recently informed the British press) and she wields a bass-heavy fusion of new wave, dub and guitar-noise reminiscent of the genre mash-up that’s propelled MIA to stardom. The thing is: Santogold isn’t a new artist at all; having previously fronted synth-laced ska outfit Stiffed in her hometown, Philadelphia. Prior to that she worked as an A&R executive at Epic Records and even wrote an album for R&B artist Res in 2002.

It wasn’t until her personal life was thrown into turmoil by the death of her father in 2004 that White called it quits as frontman of Stiffed and relocated to New York to become Santogold. Before his death, her father, a prominent Philadelphia lawyer, had been charged with bribing city officials in a FBI corruption sting. He died three months before he could stand trial. White, who insists her dad was scapegoated in a broader political witch hunt, has channelled the experience into the song You’ll Find A Way. “During that time it was just horrible,” she says, “there were situations like when my mom found a bug in her car. It was crazy, there was the press and the newspapers and TV stations and I was really disillusioned, angry and disappointed in Philadelphia because nobody would speak up for how unjust it was because everyone was terrified of the FBI, obviously.”

White’s father had been a big influence on her musical development, weening her on a diet of reggae, soul and jazz from a young age. “Every Friday morning we had to clean up the house and my dad would put on reggae and light some incense and it was great,” White recalls. “It was probably too great because I never made it out of the house until way late in the afternoon because I always got distracted by the music. He also took me to see James Brown and Nina Simone concerts at a really young age, so I was exposed to all kinds of different black music through my dad.”

Citing her sister’s more stoner rock and punk-leaning record collection as a contrasting influence, White went on to study music at university, immersing herself in everything from classical composition to West African drumming. While at college she interned at Epic Records as an A&R assistant. Quickly becoming a fully-fledged A&R representative, she signed and wrote demo songs for a young R&B artist named Res. She soon became so engrossed in the project that she abandoned her A&R post. “I ended up executive producing and writing most of Res’ record [How I Do] and that was the first time I was songwriting on a professional level,” she says. “But I actually didn’t really like writing for other people; I wanted to hear the songs exactly as they sounded in my head and once they’ve filtered through other artists and other producers and other A&R people they didn’t come out like I had in mind. After that I decided I didn’t really want to write for other people anymore and started my band Stiffed.”

With their ska-cum-new wave sound Stiffed released two albums, which in spite of heavy promotion and glossy film clips, never achieved significant success. After her father’s death and relocation to New York, White – who can play guitar, bass and keyboard – began fleshing out songs she had written with Stiffed bassist John Hill. Having been signed to Lizard King records by Martin Heath (who’s credited with discovering the Killers) before the demise of Stiffed, White was contracted to come up with an album – be it solo or with her band. “It was kinda a solo deal anyway. They woulda signed Stiffed just ‘cause they wanted to sign me anyway,” she boasts.

Working on new material, she initially found herself bewildered in New York, especially by the hipster milieux of Brooklyn. L.E.S Artistes, the superb, synth-infused opening track of her album documents the period. “I was coming back to New York, which can be a very harsh city, very grating and hard, and I was feeling very delicate and vulnerable but at the same time I was really excited to get back into my own creative life,” she explains. “In New York there’s just so much stimulus around you, you can just step outside the house and there’s ten things happening right there. There’re so many people that look so crazy and different and everyone’s so busy worrying about keeping their stuff together that you can be invisible. That’s what I was looking to do as an artist but then I was coming up against these scenesters who say they’re artists when really they’re all about being seen and who’s who and are all up in your face when you just want to be left alone and do your art.”

While she may have bypassed the poseurs, White can’t help but sound like a name-dropper when recalling being introduced by MIA sideman Diplo to eminent beat makers Switch and FreQ Nasty at a party. She went on to record her first single, Creator, with the duo. “After the party we got together in the studio and they were like, ‘Do you rap? We’re wanting to do some Baltimore bass type stuff’ and I was like, ‘No’, and they were like, ‘Can you try?’ and I was like, ‘I’ll do my interpretation of it’, and we ended up coming up with Creator. I loved the song and was like, ‘It’d be really interesting if I could incorporate this sort of sound into my record as well’. So the spectrum really just broadened. Then I had Disco D come in and work on the song Shove It and he added this down South, snap beat to a dub track and I was like, ‘All right, this is actually gonna work. I can have songs that have elements of everything, all on the same record’.”

It’s this hyper eclecticism that’s drawn a barrage of comparisons to MIA; the bass-driven, genre-blending texture of Santogold’s album continuously referenced to the Sri-Lankan born musician’s sound. “I can understand as a new artist they need a point of reference. I can’t just be ‘Santogold’ ‘cause that doesn’t mean anything to anybody yet, so it’s like [adopts publicist voice], ‘Well, it’s a little bit of Karen O, it’s a little bit of MIA, it’s a little bit of Gwen Stefani’, you know, I get all kinds of stuff. I’m just really excited for my record to come out ‘cause I don’t think my music sounds like anyone else that’s out right now and I’m confident that once it’s out I can just be Santogold.”

SANTOGOLD is out now on Downtown/Inertia.

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