Santigold, I Don’t Want - The Gold Fire Sessions

The Guardian 0

(Downtown)
Ten years after her first album, the eclectic artist is back with a mixtape of poppy island dancehall tunes

We are always, it seems, overdue a Rihanna album. The Barbadian superstar is currently putting the finishing touches to an all-dancehall album, expected to drop sometime in the near future, a record that makes perfect sense. From 2010’s Man Down through to 2016’s Work duet with Drake, Rihanna has been channelling island-born sounds into mainstream US R&B, accelerating the symbiotic relationship US pop has enjoyed with its Caribbean neighbours ever since ska artists rerecorded soul and R&B hits in the 60s.

If Rihanna was planning to lob a breezy dancehall flare into the middle of the summer, someone else unexpectedly got there first: Santigold. Released unexpectedly a week ago, I Don’t Want: The Gold Fire Sessions is another record that comes as no surprise.