Santigold and Kara Walker met at a Gucci show, the one where Santi White’s husband Trouble Andrew was enlisted by to splash his graffiti-style GucciGhost logo all over the official garments. Under the purview of creative director Alessandro Michele, it was as close to a DIY collaborative spirit that a major(ly funded) fashion house could get, and apparently that spirit bled through: the T reports that Santigold, Walker and photographer Ari Marcopolous—who was seated with them, too—decided to work together on a video.
It’s for “Banshee,” from her fun February album 99¢, an exuberant pop shuffle with Santigold’s signature lyrical uplift, and it focuses primarily on silhouettes—Walker and White puppets operated by the women, an alligator, a dude, a crow with a skull face—in Walker’s own signature language of shadows. It’s also a testament to how a little ingenuity goes a long way, with lighting and enthusiasm the key tricks to it. Walker told the T:
“Ari said we could do this video shoot in a day and I was a little unbelieving at first, but it was essentially true,” Walker says. “The goal was to keep it simple and trust each other and trust the music, since the music is the point of this film experiment. I pulled out all the low-tech tools I have in the studio, spotlights and overhead projectors.”
The laugh at the end is the best part. 99¢ is out now on Atlantic.
