Santigold has cancelled her upcoming Holified tour, citing difficulties with inflation and the changing landscape of post-pandemic music touring.
Sharing the news via an open letter on her official website today (September 27), Santigold wrote that she was “both sad and proud” to cancel the tour, which was set to begin in Atlanta next month before wrapping up in California by November.
Santigold first spoke of the “pit in [her] stomach” that she felt when deciding to axe the tour, before describing the financial and mental tolls of post-pandemic touring that forced the cancellation. “When I think of disappointing you all,” she wrote, “I feel the disappointment deep in the pit of my stomach.
“But for the past several years we have all been through immense challenges… For many of us, the landscapes we are re-entering are not the same.” The singer went on to explain the inflation costs associated with touring, describing them as unanticipated and specifically citing the “skyrocket[ing]” price of “gas, tour buses, hotels, and flight[s].”
As a result of these difficulties — which also included the unavailability of venues due to “a flooded market of artists”, and the halted tour schedules due to positive COVID cases — Santigold admitted that she simply “[couldn’t] make it work.” The singer wrote that these “demands of a relentless industry” had caused her anxiety, insomnia and fatigue.
“My little heart that has been working way beyond its limits, my whole body in fact and my soul too, are screaming at me ‘NO muthafucka! Pull.The Fuck. Over!’, she said.
Santigold later wrote that she “think[s] it’s important for people to know the truth of what it’s like out here for artists,” and that she doesn’t “believe enough of us are talking about it publicly.” She also said that she’d further elaborate on the reasons for her cancellation in the future, before deeming the broader music industry as “unsustainable”.
“I want you to understand that I am proud to be cancelling this tour when it means that I am proclaiming that I, the person who writes the songs, is as important to me as the songs. I will not continue to sacrifice myself for an industry that has become unsustainable for, and uninterested in the welfare of the artists it is built upon,” she wrote.
Santigold concluded the letter by assuring ticket holders that they’d receive refunds, as well as promising them access to her VIP membership for early releases, announcements and other “exclusive experiences… create[ed] just for this group.” The singer’s Holified tour would have been in support of her fourth studio album, ‘Spirituals’, which was released earlier this month.
In a four-star review of the album — a follow-up to the 2018 mixtape, ‘I Don’t Want: The Gold Fire Sessions’ — NME wrote that ‘Spirituals’ “proves [Santigold is] still at the head of the experimental musical stampede she started.”
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