Wow. See, this is why hipster bullshit needs to go away. You give an artist praise for what they do and all of a sudden YOU owe them something? For the record, in the world at large, “Santo” is NOT pronounced, “San-to.” Get a grip, goddamn.

do you still believe Riz? Lol (cheap shot)

^Why, yes. Just like I still believe in Kanyeezy.

Is she Kanye?

I bet she will not win Best New Artist and she will get a tantrum just like Kanyeezy.

She sounds very stupid for equating being called hip hop = racist..

My, my, my what is with some of these artists nowadays? Do they just lack intelligent quotients or have no common sense whatsoever? Like who does PR for these ppl?

See why such artists should never be blogged about on a hip hop blog Riz?

Ummm… I clicked the link to NME, hoping to read a full length interview. Instead, I get a bunch of brief quotes. C’mon, y’all. You know better than to just draw conclusions based on bits and pieces of information.

For all we know, Santogold had a longer explanation for the Hip-Hop label being a racist one. What if she was offering a deconstruction of the label as a fact that nowadays, a Black artist can only make Hip-Hop music? I can seriously see magazines ignoring deeper discourse for the purpose of generating controversy.

I don’t know what was actually said, so I’m not going to automatically pull the crazy artist card.

Hmm… Like Ninoy said, it’s just quotes. And it may not be that far of a stretch to claim that labeling as such is a bit prejudiced at least.

I don’t think she has a bone to pick with HipHop as such, given the fact of her writing raps back in the day and the tee she’s wearing in that pic. But her album is far from a bonafide HipHop album, still people see her and figure she has to do something heavily HipHop-related given her appearance.

The whole argument does seem a bit overly pretentious though.

no wonder everyone is stealing music.

@Ninoy: For her sake let’s hope so..’cos there’s no kind of argument (at least in my mind)that can be made for equating being labeled as part of a music genre borne out of a culture to being racist..none whatsoever.

I know sometimes some ppl in the media can be terrible when it comes to taking things out of context but we need some clarity on this issue. Like I said earlier the girl’s music is not hip hop..yet a lot of hip hop outlets champion her music..not that there’s anything wrong with that but I’m just saying..

I just heard this chick on BBC today, and she didn’t even mention hip-hop as an influence on her music…I mean, I can understand people saying they feel her music, but I don’t like hearing that she’s “hip-hop”. She’s like indie-pop

[...] I’m also surprised that N.E.R.D. and Santogold hadn’t worked together before now. Then again, we all know how much Santogold loves hip-hop. [...]

You guys are MISSING THE POINT. The point is that there is nothing about Santogold’s music that would give way to being considered “hip hop” were it not for her skin color. How annoying must it be for her to just know she is going to be generalized that way, maybe she doesn’t like R&B LIKE SHE SAID. She says she doesn’t like the genre. How would a white person feel if they came out with a thoroughly hip hop album only to have it labeled pop or worse, country? I’m sure she has intentionally strayed away from sounding “hip hop” because she wants to do something different and underline the point that yes, young black artists can in fact have nothing to do with hip hop. I find that refreshing, I am so sick of HIP HOP substituting for the word BLACK nowadays. It’s divisive, actually. I wouldn’t be surprised if Barack Obama was referred to as a “hip hop” Presidential Candidate. PLENTY OF BLACK PEOPLE DO NOT LIKE HIP HOP! It’s not a pre-requisite to being Black! So I totally see what she’s saying and I don’t think she came off rude.

Well put, Cthulhu. You did a better job of conveying that point than Santogold.