Santogold Tells Daily Texan About Life at Wes

The Daily Texan spins an angle on Santogold that isn’t about her Brooklyn address or alleged similarity to any number of quirky female artists, focusing instead on her college years at Wesleyan.

As it happens, she was really bored at Wes and wanted to get out ASAP, having actually discovered her skills at Howard University:

Anyone can Google Santogold and discover her love of punk rock, read up on her former career as an A&R rep for Sony, and see pictures of her pro snowboarder boyfriend Trouble Andrew. However, her whole college experience gets a measly one sentence on her Wikipedia page: “… Went to college at Wesleyan University, where she studied Caribbean and West African drumming.” Accordingly, The Daily Texan was obliged to get the dish on what White was into back in her underage days.

“I had no idea I would be doing this today. I thought I wanted to own a record label,” White said via phone call from Los Angeles. “To do that, I thought I should study music and business. But Wesleyan is a small liberal arts school and they didn’t have a business program. So to my young teenaged mind, it made sense to instead major in Economics, which was so wrong for me. I hate calculus!”

White then became a visual arts major, concentrating on painting for a year and a half. But before long, the rural setting became a drag on the Philly native. “My college was in the middle of nowhere,” White said. “And at that time, I would get bored with something really quickly. I’m actually still like this.” White signed up for a semester exchange at Howard University, where she said she finally came to self-identify as an artist.

…After a semester in the relatively big city, White was determined to finish up at Wesleyan as soon as possible. “I went back, and it wasn’t any fun,” White said. White immediately took up a music major and continued experimenting with the ideas she had dabbled in during her semester at Howard.

At the end of her junior year, White took off. “That summer I moved to New York,” White said. “I started working at Sony full-time, and then in the fall, I continued working there, commuting from the city back to the college every week. I would drive up, go to classes, and come home again.” In spite of the breakneck schedule, White graduated from Wesleyan with a double major in three and a half years.

Props on having that kind of drive, but damn, Howard University was more inspiring than Wesleyan? FYI, the album is out today.

Full article: Santogold recollects Wesleyan experience, debuts self-titled CD

Thanks uh, john wesley, for the Shoutbox tip.

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26 thoughts on “Santogold Tells Daily Texan About Life at Wes

  1. Anonymous

    well, what a fucking idiot for coming to wes if she wanted to major in business. jesus.

  2. Anonymous

    oh come on, were you complaining when wesleying was masturbating to the MGMT earlier this semester? she’s a Wes alum who’s hitting it big, and especially when she talks about Wes it’s relevant to this blog. besides, there haven’t even been that many posts about her, it’s just that the media is blitzing her this week cause of her new album.

  3. Anonymous

    oh come on, were you complaining when wesleying was masturbating to the MGMT earlier this semester? she’s a Wes alum who’s hitting it big, and especially when she talks about Wes it’s relevant to this blog. besides, there haven’t even been that many posts about her, it’s just that the media is blitzing her this week cause of her new album.

  4. Anonymous

    there are plenty of colleges that are in the middle of nowhere (grinnell, middlebury, williams)… but wesleyan? we’re located in a town of 45,000 and 2 hours from new york and boston… not quite the middle of nowhere.

  5. Anonymous

    there are plenty of colleges that are in the middle of nowhere (grinnell, middlebury, williams)… but wesleyan? we’re located in a town of 45,000 and 2 hours from new york and boston… not quite the middle of nowhere.

  6. Anonymous

    Not everyone who is miserable at a college wants to transfer. That’s a hectic ordeal — maybe you won’t get credits transferred, maybe you hate the place you go next, etc. And maybe, it’s not the specific college you hate, but just college in general. So getting out as soon as possible is best. For some people, it’s just easier to stay in one place, graduate on time, and find ways to escape, which sounds like what she did.

  7. Anonymous

    Not everyone who is miserable at a college wants to transfer. That’s a hectic ordeal — maybe you won’t get credits transferred, maybe you hate the place you go next, etc. And maybe, it’s not the specific college you hate, but just college in general. So getting out as soon as possible is best.
    For some people, it’s just easier to stay in one place, graduate on time, and find ways to escape, which sounds like what she did.

  8. Anonymous

    Howard is in DC and it’s one of the best historically black universities in the US. it’s kind of weird that she chose there to get involved in music though, it’s known for churning out well-qualified doctors, lawyers, and other professional types.

  9. Anonymous

    Howard is in DC and it’s one of the best historically black universities in the US. it’s kind of weird that she chose there to get involved in music though, it’s known for churning out well-qualified doctors, lawyers, and other professional types.

  10. Anonymous

    that’s so bizarre that she would commute from nyc instead of just transferring to a less “rural” school.

  11. Anonymous

    that’s so bizarre that she would commute from nyc instead of just transferring to a less “rural” school.

  12. Anonymous

    guess she just knew what she wanted and that she’d have to deal with being bored for another year. I mean, she’s successful now so it apparently worked out

  13. Anonymous

    guess she just knew what she wanted and that she’d have to deal with being bored for another year. I mean, she’s successful now so it apparently worked out

  14. Anonymous

    Granted that Middletown isn’t the most exciting place for a city girl, but why didn’t she just transfer if Wesleyan was such a drag?

  15. Anonymous

    Granted that Middletown isn’t the most exciting place for a city girl, but why didn’t she just transfer if Wesleyan was such a drag?

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