Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Karima Santi is an emerging Nigerien-American artist based in Austin, TX. In 2023, she teamed up with Grammy-nominated producer Chris “Frenchie” Smith, to record “Space,” a surprisingly relaxed song about battling anxiety, driven by acoustic guitars and punctuated by unexpected beat drops.
Before moving to Austin in 2019, Santi performed with an eclectic mix of jazz, folk, and punk-rock bands in the Raleigh-Durham music scene, but found it challenging to fit in and find a place for her particular sound. After leaving her last band, she spent several years focused solely on songwriting and amassed hundreds of demos by the time she joined forces with Frenchie at the Bubble Studios.
This summer, they assembled a world-class team of Austin musicians to complete a collection of singles, scheduled for release in late 2023. Listeners compare her music to Mazzy Star, Cat Power, and Men I Trust, and one fellow artist labeled her sound “indie-rock gold”.