Let’s indulge in some NME-style hyperbole — Santogold is just the greatest thing ever. She’s smart, she’s adorable, and her record is an exercise in how to do genre-hopping right.
Taking the stage half an hour late to a packed house, Santogold did not disappoint. Flanked by her two sexy-Farrakhan backup dancers, she kicked off the set with “LES Artistes,” the B-Side to her original “Creator” single. She slammed through the super-upbeat “Say Aha” and dubby “Shove It,” then paused to introduce her new DJ, a Brit who had never visited New York before. She then false-started “Anne,” stopping a few seconds in to pick up forgotten tambourines, exclaiming “I do this every damn time!”
After “Anne,” “You’ll Find A Way,” and “Unstoppable,” Santogold stopped to thank the audience. She got all choked up, saying she’d had a rough week (rumor has it that she lost a close friend in a car accident last week) and that she couldn’t believe the day of her record release was finally here.
She closed the show with “Creator,” her theme song. She truly is a creator, thrilling in making it up, and what she’s doing is putting her on a lot of radars.
