Santigold just released the cover art for her new album “Master of My Make-Believe,” (Yesss MA’AMMMM!!) out May 1. For the picture, she hired the photographer Jason Schmidt to shoot her three ways: as attendants wearing custom bodysuits designed by Alexander Wang in what she calls “Bond-girl, gold of course!”; as a distinguished army officer in a painting by the artist Kehinde Wiley; and as a dominating mafia Don in the center — “Some sort of ruler in my own reality,” Santi calls it.
Referencing the 18th-century British artist Joshua Reynolds’s painting of Banastre Tarleton titled “Portrait of an Officer,” Wiley’s depiction of Santi is, in fact, his first of a woman ever (up until this point his work has focused solely on African-American men, whom he places against vividly colorful and cartoonish floral backdrops).
More at T Magazine, and watch a behind the scenes video as well.
