Stella Santana

Photo by, @louis_browne

Meet Stella Santana

Immaculate rockstar spawn (of Carlos Santana) and a talented musician in her own right, Stella Santana, hops on a zoom to share her off-the-cuff philosophy on self-advocation and gaining perspective by “zooming out” (which she is exploring on her upcoming album, ‘Distant’). Stella follows the beat of her own drum; her rock-meets-R&B sound hooks you like a pop song and engages you with its depth, clearly stemming from a person with a voice as well as an (inherited) ear.

If you want to hear her music for yourself, check out definite club banger ‘Yayaya’ which, incidentally, was written by her younger sister. To dig deeper, check her 2016 album ‘Selfish’ (start with track 1 and listen chronologically). Stella also just released a new hypnotic song, a collaboration with Avi Snow called “Don’t Turn Around.”

Our interview below devolves into a conversation about societal philosophies…

So what musical material, like CD’s and records were around you when you were a kid? What kind of genres? What were you DJing for yourself?

Well, for myself, I would say it was more like R&B and stuff. So, even though I don't listen to him now because he's disgusting, it was R Kelly and West coast stuff like Tupac and then Total and Aaliyah and… I would just tape songs off the radio like Donell Jones but I also liked alternative stuff and pop. I loved Alanis Morissette… I love Jamiroquai. And my dad would sometimes ask, “why are you listening to that? That's not good.” And he was so judgmental and now, of course, I’m that way with what other people listen to—big shock!

Then as far as what I was hearing, it was a lot of Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley, Angelique Kidjo, Miles Davis, John Coltrane… that kind of stuff.

I want to ask you about your 2016 album, Selfish. So it was named after the song Selfish and in it, you talk about how you get called selfish a lot and how really you're just trying to focus. I find that really cool that you're this female putting yourself first, which is all anyone can do. You know, at least for me, it felt like I was kind of, in a way, trained to be accommodating and a caretaker and I liked your messages that are just like, I'm selfish. I get called out. I got to do what I can.

Yeah. But I feel like I am also a caretaker and I can be a team player as long as it's not compromising myself. I'm not saying I’m out here bulldozing people/places/things like, I don't care, at any cost, whatever I want. That's not the selfishness that I'm talking about.

It's more that I don't like committing to something and backing out. I'd rather just say no from the jump if my heart’s not in it.

I know when I'm not going to wanna do something. If I'm over something or I’m not into it anymore, it's not going to be enjoyable for anybody involved, including myself.

I feel like most people, especially women, they know what they need, but sometimes they're like, ‘but I shouldn't want this’ or ‘who am I to want this?. I don’t recommend this approach of curating your desires based on outside influences. Just be like, ‘I want this, period.’ I just think it's a healthier place for everyone to be, because then everybody wins from that space.

How did you get there? What were you growing up around that made you realize that?

Ha, I think I was a little bit born like that and my parents were like, ‘why are you so annoying?’ I always said ‘No.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Why?’ 'Why does this make sense?’ ‘Why?’

My mom always said I was going to be a lawyer like, ‘why do you argue so much?’ But I wasn’t trying to argue, I just couldn’t go along with things that didn’t make logical sense. I needed more of an explanation if logic wasn’t easily applied and generally, I was able to negotiate different terms once I pointed out the holes.

And then, you know, you go through relationships and boyfriends and friendships and stuff. That accommodating part of me that was kind of like, ‘let me just stick this out despite this red flag and this thing on fire… despite all these, let me just stick it out’, which would just hurt me in the end. And the other person I'm sure, but obviously, I've only experienced my own self. This wasn’t sustainable for me. It always ended up being a big fat waste of time because I was always going to have to confront it at some point anyway. So now l just do it asap. A friend of mine is always like, ‘just cry once, and then you don’t have to cry anymore.’ You know? Like do the hard thing, which is going to suck but you just do it and then, okay, it's over.

And you know, it's not like people are trying to take advantage of you. They're just doing what they feel like they need to do… not seeing everything as an attack all the time is helpful. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to say no when I don’t wanna do something, but I also want you to have what you want. I'm just not the one to give it to you. So, you know, it’s a learning experience for everyone. I think you need to not take things so personally and articulate what you need without it being so emotional.

Yeah, like don’t try to impart your truth on them and how what they did was wrong. Because oftentimes your truth exists to guide you, not be your preaching material.

Yeah, your truth is your truth. Only.

And especially right now in the world when everyone's arguing and fighting and, not that there's not a reason to be arguing and fighting because people are being cuckoo bananas and wild and terrible, but there still is a way to disarm people—well most people who aren’t sociopaths because those exist too.

And I'm not saying that all people necessarily deserve respect and I'm not saying that things don't really piss me off. And I’m not saying I don't want to yell at someone or scream at someone. Cause I'm a human being. But not as much growth and evolution can come from that space, I feel like. So right now I’m focused on how can I almost be ‘meta’, it's like a zooming out kind of thing. Like the album that I'm working on, it's called ‘Distant’. I've had that title since 2017 and I’ve been working on the music for awhile.

And actually, when I first told my dad that it was titled ‘Distant’, he was like, ‘why would you call it that? You're not a distant person.’ and I clarified, ‘because to me, the ability to zoom out is so powerful and it requires you to let go of what you think or what you've always thought of. To not cling with white knuckles and try to own truth. To be able to zoom out means you recognize that maybe you don't see the whole picture. There's more to see, it's a powerful place to start from. And then going back in, when you look closer again, the things start to look different and you can be like, for example, okay, I can understand why a racist person exists because this is all they know.

And I'm not saying it's okay. But it's like, now that I see all of these things, of course this person would be functioning this way based on all of these attributes. Again, it's not okay. But then I'm like, how do we, from a larger perspective, make it so that all those circumstances don't continue to create a situation for racism to thrive anymore? How do we open it up so that it's impossible for someone to hold those beliefs without being confronted; not violently necessarily, but just harder to move forward with it—they’re proven wrong at every step. There’s some embarrassing statistic about Americans not having a passport. How crazy is that? It’s such a giant world and you don't even leave and explore it. And on top of that, you think you know everything. Like, what?? How is that possible???

Our news doesn't even talk about other countries. When I was 15 and in London, the BBC News Radio was on and it was covering news from around the world. I was like, ‘I don't get it. Why aren't they just talking about England?’ My perspective from growing up in America is really nuts.

Yeah, exactly. And so that's what I'm trying to unpack or deconstruct on a bunch of different levels with this upcoming project. Like relationships, with self, with other humans, intimate relationships, parents, whoever… I want to be like if you can just zoom out, let go, release all of the stories that you've told yourself, the narratives, all the stuff that’s not really real. Like social media isn't real. But it’s reinforced by itself. And if you just can kind of step away from it and look at it for what it is, you won't be as affected. You know people that are like ‘I’m deleting Instagram, it’s stressing me out.’ And that is crazy to me. It’s not a real thing. How can you give something so trivial so much power?

But I also understand how you can give something trivial so much power because you don't know, you don't see it for what it is if you're in it. You gotta be outside of it. I feel like the COVID situation made me feel like I could talk about things on a deeper level, more cause everyone was like, ‘Whoa, what's happening?’ Mortality became talked about more. I think it’s super healthy to talk about how you can die, talk about impermanence, how nothing lasts forever. It’s a subject people avoid, or they glorify it from a reckless place, not a respectful place.

And racism. when I learned about undoing racism before this, I was like, what are we going to do? The world moves too fast. No one's ever going to acknowledge this. And we've gotten to like slow down and just like acknowledge it and also acknowledge like there's a lot of things in our lives that aren't making us happy.

Yes, a lot of things that don’t make us happy that we’re actually participating in for no reason… like sheep. It's like, ‘why do you do it?’ ‘Cause I saw that person do it. And I'm like, ‘that's a good enough reason for you?’ That's crazy to me. That's insane. You have so much power inside of you and you just limit yourself. Not to be judgmental, I think everyone is on their own path and own journey at their own pace. But you know, when things start having negative effects, it's just worth looking at from an outside perspective… zoom out as far as you can.