Next month, Santigold plans to release her fourth full-length album, Spirituals. We’ve already heard a handful of tracks from the album, including “High Priestess,” “Ain’t Ready,” and “Nothing.” Now, Santi is back with another album preview featuring production by SBTRKT. It’s called “Shake.”
“‘Shake’ is one of those songs that was just floating around me for the taking,” Santi says of her latest single, which is meant to be about resilience. She continues:
What I mean is, that there are some songs that basically write themselves, and all you have to do as the artist is be open enough to reach out and pull it in and say thank you. When that happens I am always so grateful because it’s like the universe just handed me a gem. I sit down to write and as soon as I open my mouth the song just pours out. In this instance SBTRKT had sent me several tracks he’d been working on, and this one stood out because it sounded so different from anything I’d ever heard from him, and also so unlike anything I had ever done before. I literally stepped in front of the mic, and opened my mouth and said “ooh – hoo, shake, shake shake!”, and the whole rest of the melody poured out from there. And then when I sat down to finish the lyrics, they came just as quick. I can’t say this song is about one thing, as much as it’s about a feeling. It’s about flow, about riding the ebb and flows of life, it’s about rolling with it, moving through it, letting it all move through you. And it’s about the feeling in that moment when you feel life flowing through you, the rapture of it all. It’s about our resilience as humans, and our ability to keep rising back up in the face of hardship and moving forward.
“Shake” also has a poignant music video, which the art-pop performer opens up about below:
For this piece, I was inspired by the images of the civil rights protesters being pounded with high-pressure water hoses, turned on them by the authorities, during their peaceful protests. The strength and fortitude that it took for them, many just teenagers and young adults, to endure what they did and keep going, is monumental. This video is an homage to them, in which I try to power through singing this song while enduring the pain of a high-pressure water hose.
Watch and listen to “Shake” below.
Spirituals is out 9/9 via Santigold’s label Little Jerk Records.
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