Santigold announced this week that she has cancelled her tour of the U.S. and Canada, which was set to begin on Oct. 9.
"I can’t make it work,” the 46-year-old singer explained, in a message she shared on social media.
Santigold said touring life following two years of pandemic lockdowns is challenging.
“Every musician that could, rushed back out immediately when it was deemed safe to do shows. We were met with the height of inflation—gas, tour buses, hotels, and flight costs skyrocketed—many of our tried-and-true venues unavailable due to a flooded market of artists trying to book shows in the same cities, and positive test results constantly halting schedules with devastating financial consequences,” she wrote.
“All of that on top of the already-tapped mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional resources of just having made it through the past few years. Some of us are finding ourselves simply unable to make it work.”
The Holified Tour, in support of Santigold’s new album Spirituals, was scheduled to include 19 shows, including one on Oct. 19 at MTELUS in Montreal and another on Oct. 21 at Toronto’s Danforth Music Hall.
“I have tried and tried, looked at what it would take from every angle, and I simply don’t have it. I can’t make it work,” Santigold shared.
“It has taken a toll – through anxiety, insomnia, fatigue, vertigo, chronic pain, and missing crucial time with my children.”
Though she said she was grateful to her fans for their support and admitted it was heartbreaking to disappoint them, Santigold did not apologize for her decision.
“I want you to understand that I am proud to be canceling 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,” she explained.
“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.”
Earlier this month, British singer-songwriter Arlo Parks cancelled a number of U.S. tour dates, citing her mental health. “I find myself now in a very dark place, exhausted and dangerously low,” the 22-year-old wrote in a message to fans. “It’s painful to admit that my mental health has deteriorated to a debilitating place, that I’m not okay, that I’m a human being with limits.”
British singer Sam Fender pulled the plug on his remaining tour dates – including one in Vancouver – to “take the time to look after my own mental health.
In July, Canadian singer Shawn Mendes cancelled the remaining dates on his Wonder tour, to “take the time I’ve never taken personally, to ground myself and come back stronger.”