Santigold’s albums are entire worlds meticulously built, brick by brick, by a master architect who incisively speaks to the present while shaping the future. Her fourth album Spirituals captures the feeling of surviving in the modern world while elevating yourself to new places. Mostly recorded in the 2020 lockdown, Santigold struggled but succeeded in defining a space in which she could center herself and collaborate virtually with producers and contributors including Rostam, Nick Zinner, SBTRKT, JakeOne, Illangelo, Doc McKinney and Carlo Montagnese.

“I loved the idea of calling it Spirituals because it touched on the idea of Negro spirituals, which were songs that served the purpose of getting Black people through the un-get-throughable,” she continues. “In the absence of physical freedom, spirituals have traditionally been music whose sound and physical performance allow its participants to feel transcendental freedom in the moment. That’s what this record did for me.” Meanwhile, the social justice protests of 2020 were unfolding. “I’d never written lyrics faster in my life. After having total writer’s block, they started pouring out,” she says.

Since her last full-length release, Santigold has also engaged new ways to express and release her ideas, allowing her greater range to be even truer to her creative intentions on her own terms. She created Spirituals as a multisensory experience that includes new ways of sharing her visual art; a forthcoming natural skincare line; a new podcast in which she interviews other artists and visionaries; and a memoir tracing the generations of her family and “what it is to be a Black woman, what progress has been made, and what’s stayed the same.”

“I want to continue branching out into all forms of art,” Santigold says. “And I’m really excited to take my music into new places.”