Santigold has shared a new single ‘High Priestess’, on which she said she was looking for “the future sound of punk rock” – scroll down the page to hear it now.
The track marks the artist’s first solo release since her 2018 mixtape ‘I Don’t Want: The Gold Fire Sessions’.
‘High Priestess’ started life as a collaboration between Ray Brady and Boyz Noize, according to the star. Psymun and Gayngs’ Ryan Olson joined the mix as the song grew.
“I had started working on this beat and I didn’t have anything in mind for a topic, I just knew I wanted to do a sort of rap punk song (as dangerous as that sounds),” Santigold said in a statement. “My buddy Ray Brady and I started working on something, trying to add in all the elements that made sense, kicks, subs, new wave synths. Boys Noize ended up bringing something super cool that really built the song and made me get even more excited about it.
“It was coming along quickly, until it wasn’t. The punk rock energy, the angst, that I wanted to come across wasn’t quite there. I tried adding guitar and a live drum kit, and that was a big red buzzer ‘X.’ I ended up tagging in Psymun (Simon Christensen) who brought in Ryan Olson, and they brought the final missing element. The energy I was looking for couldn’t be the old version of punk rock, it had to be the future sound of punk rock. They brought the angst, the push and pull that was missing, but it was very fresh sounding and totally unexpected. It all came together in a way I could never have imagined when we started, but it was exactly what I set out to make.”
She added: “I want to make music that sounds like the past and the future all in one; music that makes you feel safe enough to jump in, but then takes us on a journey to where we needed to go but have never even heard of. I want my music to be the bridge.”
Santigold also explained that working on the track after being in “Mom mode for months” was like “finding gold”. “It literally saved my spirit,” she said. “And that brings us to the name of the song. I called this song ‘High Priestess’ because this song was about my greatness.
“I needed to be a witness to myself at that point, calling out my own power, my own fortitude, my own wisdom, because I felt like I had become disconnected from it, having been stripped out of the rhythm of life that I had cultivated for myself, and thrust into this smaller, one-dimensional version of myself, grounded and isolated for too long. The lyrics are fun though, rap lyrics in general, boastful, cocky, but that’s what I was talking about underneath it all.”
The official video for the track, which you can watch above, only features one-minute-and-17-seconds of the song. You can also listen to the full track in the official audio video above.
Last year, the artist featured on a posthumous album from late dancehall and reggae icon U-Roy. She appeared on the track ‘Man Next Door’, while others that contributed to the record included The Clash’s Mick Jones, Shaggy, Ziggy Marley and more.