Her music is a hodgepodge of styles (rap, ska, reggae, rock, electro, dub), and last night the 9:30 Club was treated to the whole Santogold smorgasbord. In addition to many of the cuts from her eponymous album, Santogold (aka Santi White) found time to cover The Cure and Spank Rock and sing the loop from “Shove It” over and over, which Jay-Z used for his track, “Brooklyn (We Go Hard)”. Toss in a few guest appearances by the openers (the half-naked Amanda Blank and mumbler Trouble Andrew), stir in some android backup singers/dancers (who were awesome, by the way), gold-accented costumes, an audience member dance competition on stage and … you get the idea. And, as if we weren’t overwhelmed enough by all the visual and audio stimulation, we had to ponder her recent decision to change her name from Santogold to Santigold, a small, but essential distinction.
No one really knows what to call Puffy/P. Diddy/Diddy these days, but that doesn’t keep him from being a super-successful hyphenate, so why should Santi be worried about buying and swapping a vowel? Turns out the reason for the new stage name was more necessary (and hilarious) than all that. It seems that Santogold was sued by the the original Santo Gold, another hyphenate of sorts, who is (in)famous for a horrible ’80s B-movie that has been described as, “a wrestling-themed science fiction flick, with aliens from the planet Zoran fighting the US and USSR.” Surprisingly, the movie, Blood Circus, was never released, but Santo Gold used clips of it in his jewelry infomercials. I shit you not. Just watch this. It will blow you away.
Anyway, back to the show. Despite all the genre-bending music, name confusion, painfully-loud bass, tired-looking band, and zombie back-up dancers, Santi did a great job of pumping up the audience. She thanked the D.C. crowd from the start and mentioned that one of the first gigs she ever played was right here in Chocolate City, with Architecture In Helsinki. She ticked off two big tracks, “You’ll Find A Way” and the impossibly catchy “L.E.S. Artistes” right out of the gates, leaving one to wonder how she would end the show.
