Santi White, otherwise known as Santigold, seems like one of those artists that are completely untouchable (think Madonna or Paul McCartney). So when I was told I landed an interview with her, I kind of freaked out. As a female in the music industry, I have mad respect for how she carries herself. She’s strong, capable, fearless and, of course, talented. Her 2008 self-titled debut garnered significant critical acclaim and her stylistic reach won over an onslaught of admirers. After a 4-year hiatus, the Philadelphia-native is back with Master of my Make Believe, another almost genre-less masterpiece. She took a minute to talk to me from her New York City apartment about farts, Martin and the oversexualization of the female pop star. –Kyle Eustice

How did you end up an A&R for Epic Records?

Since high school, I’ve wanted to own a company so I could work on the business side of music. Senior year, I got an internship in Philadelphia at Ruff House Records and then I went to college in Connecticut at Wesleyan and in the summer of freshman year, I interned at Sony/Epic. Two summers later, I ended up taking a full time job at Epic after my junior year. I graduated early. They let me work 3 days a week for the first semester until I could finish and then I took a full-time job. At that time, I was an executive assistant, but this guy I worked with was awesome and asked me what I wanted to do. So he let me be the A&R assistant and he let me sign this girl Reese with a demo deal. I ended up getting disillusioned throughout the whole process. I was there in that capacity for a year and a half, then I realized everything that I tried to get them to sign, they’d be like ‘this doesn’t sound like Puffy [laughs].’ I was like ‘wow this isn’t a creative job at all.’ I started to get disillusioned with the whole business side and politics of it. It was business and money. That wasn’t me. For me, it was the creative part. I realized that I liked writing songs.

Did that experience give you an advantage once you went to the other side?

Well, it was a great experience because I learned a lot about the machine behind the industry. I learned once you make an art, what has to happen to it to make it profitable enough to make a living at it and what the label’s objective is versus the artist’s objective. That way you know how to work together. When someone tells you what you have to do, if you don’t know yourself then you’re going to do whatever he or she says. Knowing that side of the business gave me power and freedom. Although, that was in the late 90’s and everything has changed. More than anything now, that’s just life experience I can draw from.

I was talking to Chuck Treece today and it dawned on me that he was in your first band and produced your first record. I had no idea.

Ahhhh!!  Chuck I will credit for making me start singing myself. It was right after I wrote the Reese record and I was like ‘Chuck, you know I think I want to start my own band.’ He’s like ‘yeah, what kind?’ I said ‘punk new wave. I want you to be in it.’ And I was like ‘I don’t want to do any shows. I just want to make a record. I don’t want to sing in front of other people.’ I was intent on never performing. He’s like ‘we have to do a show Santi.’ I was like ‘no!’ And he said, ‘Santi you cant even do this type of music without performing a show. Punk anything is live.’  So he pushed me to do it and I did it. It was so much fun.

So I hear you’re the type of person who thinks farts are funny.

Oh honey. You have no idea. I have a scatological sense of humor. I’m so lucky. My husband loves it, too. We have a ball about fart jokes. It never gets old. It’s kind of a gross sense of humor. It’s kind of inherited, isn’t it? I have never told this story before publicly [laughs], but when I was little, I had someone come up to me who was like ‘come here, come here. Open your hand.’ I was like ‘what it is?’ and I put out my hand and he put a booger in it!  I couldn’t stop laughing. That’s my sense of humor.

Were you surprised with the success of your debut album? It did phenomenally well.

I was surprised. Because I came up in music through a major label and saw how it was with pop music, I thought I was kind of making music that turned my back on pop music. I thought ‘I’m just making music I like and I don’t care. Maybe they will like it in Europe [laughs].’ You know what I mean? I really had no expectations. I didn’t think it would catch on here at all, but it did. Especially what surprised me was that I got so many compliments from other artists, ones that I really respected. It was a real honor to get acknowledged by artists I held up real high. That was really a wonderful surprise.

You’ve kind of created this whole thing on your own. Is that what the title Master of my Own Make Believe means?

It’s realizing you are the ruler of your reality. Anything that we can envision for ourselves, we can make happen. Any role we can see ourselves in, we can manage. I think that is a really important notion, especially when our world is kind of mess. That’s why you get things like Occupy Wall Street and all of these uprisings. I think people feel their power has been compromised or taken away and we feel like we can’t make a difference, but that’s not the truth. Not just from a political aspect. I wrote that record on a very personal level, too. Being a woman in the industry, I really had to learn how to be a strong, confident leader and really trust myself. I think that’s a really, really important place to be as a creative person. As a business person, you have to trust yourself. So that’s where it came from. It was partly a pep talk title to myself and an inspirational talk to the world.

What do you think of the blatant sexualization of the “pop star?”

I find it very boring to be honest. I grew up in the era of hip-hop and riot grrls. In the late 90’s, we all had baggy clothes and Doc boots. We thought if you wore really tight jeans and tried to be sexy, we would diss that so much. We were like, ‘what a fucking slut [laughs].’ I was watching Martin the other night, you know Martin, right? 

Hell yes, I know Martin.

I got home from tour the other night and it was like 4 or 5 in the morning. I turned on the T.V. and Martin was on. In the episode, Martin was trying to get his own radio show so he had to kiss up to the owner’s wife. She was supposed to be this super hot chick, but would wear super tight latex clothing and show mad cleavage. So Gina showed up with this outfit at Martin’s get-together and he’s so embarrassed. He’s like ‘Gina, cover yourself up! Only guys that are insecure like girls like that’. I was like ‘wow, even Martin back in the day had more sense than everything we have right now.’ What happened to that? Women have totally lost their way. Self-image is at the lowest of all right now. That’s what I don’t like about T.V. It’s all about these terrible reality shows where you can see these monster faces where everybody has injections and plastic surgery and that’s normal. Fake asses, fake boobs, fake everything and then they’re fighting over a man because that’s their only sense of self-worth. We have Billionaire’s Wives, Basketball Wives, New Jersey Housewives, I mean, what are little girls supposed to look up to? It’s unbelievable. Then there are magazines of course, which are all photo-shopped. I hope nobody’s really believing in that because that’s horrible, but I know everybody is. I’ve always had a hard time because I’ve always been kind of a tomboy growing up and I liked doing stuff that the boys did, which is why I think I have done a lot of things that girls normally wouldn’t do. I used to hang out with the rappers and producers and then when I’d tell my girlfriends, ‘let’s start a group,’ they would always flake. They didn’t want to do the hard stuff like get up in the morning to go snowboarding or whatever so I was like, ‘fuck, I guess I’ll just go with the guys.’

Why do you think it’s that way?

I think the problem is that girls are brought up to be accommodating, apologetic and compromising and yielding. In the studio, those qualities won’t get you anywhere. In the studio, I’ve had to take on traditionally male roles by being unaccommodating, unapologetic and confident. Like ‘this is how it’s going to go and if you don’t like it you can leave.’ These things that women are taught won’t get you very far in the world. Unfortunately, women are taught that the only thing they have is their sex appeal and it’s fucking old, I mean how old is that notion? 

I was talking to Chuck D of Public Enemy the other day and I asked him how I could make a difference in the world.

Change starts within each person. That’s what my song “Disparate Youth” is about. Dare to be the one that thinks bigger and wants to make a difference and you will make a difference. 

I know you toured with Bad Brains a few years back. I have a confession. I accidentally called H.R. “Human Resources” during our interview.

He probably didn’t even notice [laughs]. He’s crazy. I went on tour with him in 2001 and I was actually with him on 9-11. He is really a brilliant, brilliant person, but now he’s just so out there that it’s, well, interesting.