Listen To Santi’s Masterful Debut Album, ‘Mandy & The Jungle’

Since 2019 began, Santi has been hinting at the release of his debut album, captioning several Instagram posts with “Year of the Album”. Finally, in April, Santi opened the gates to his newest creation, releasing the cinematic trailer for his latest project, Mandy & The Jungle. 

The project’s exciting tracklist was all the buzz on Twitter, and it had fans begging for the immediate release of the project. Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait too long, as Mandy & The Jungle is finally here, and it is precisely the masterpiece we expected the rising star to deliver.

Mandy & The Jungle is a 16-track compilation of the Santi we know and love. The album opens with a tranquil ode to friendship, “Raining Outside” — an appropriate subject matter given that the rest of the album boasts major input from Santi’s nearest and dearest. 

DRAM, on “Demon Hearts”, is the first of two Grammy-nominated artists we hear on Santi’s debut album. GoldLink is the second, on what was probably the most anticipated track of the album, “Maria”, and thanks to GMK’s fantastic production work, it lives up to the hype.

Given Santi’s skill in selecting artists to bring out the best on his tracks, Mandy & The Jungle delivers on that front. Most guest acts are, of course, familiar names from his creative circle, but — in addition to DRAM and GoldLink — Santi also invites Bajan singer, Kris Irie for the faultless duet, “RX-64”. 

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Within the tear-jerking “Sparky” film, Santi teased a similarly emotive track, which we now know to be the Tay Iwar-aided “Murvlana”. As usual, Tay Iwar does a phenomenal job on the standout track, coming away as the strongest guest on the entire project.

Joining Amaarae on the album closer, “Settle Down”, Tay Iwar and the Ghanaian singer become the only two acts to appear twice on Santi’s tape (Amaarae previously soaring on the beloved single, “Rapid Fire”), and with how great they are on the track, it’s not hard to see why. 

Throughout the album, Santi adopts various personas, from a tortured lover to a clear-minded ex. On air with CoolFM, Santi encourages listeners to create their own universe as they listen to the tape, and he lays the perfect backdrop for their minds to do just that.

Listen to Santi’s masterful album below: