Santogold Sued By… Santo Gold

When Googling hipster-friendly American pop/R&B/hip-hop singer Santogold, you may discover a guy named Santo Gold. He's a musician and actor whose credentials include starring in several strange infomercials for gold chains and a "space wrestling" movie. If you think these two artists' names are a tiny bit similar, you wouldn't be alone, because Santo Gold is suing Santogold for name infringement.

Santo Gold (real name Santo Rigatuso) has slapped a lawsuit on Santogold (real name Santi White) and her record labels, Downtown Records and Lizard King Records. Santo Gold says he's been using his stage name since 1983. Santogold says she got her moniker from a classmate sometime in the '80s.

Santo Gold wants an injunction to stop Santogold from using her current stage name or any that may be "substantially similar" (does this rule out Saint O'Gold, then?). Santogold's self-titled album, along with her website, santogold.com, have led Santo Gold to say Santogold is "crushing" his "hopes of continuing his music and acting career." He wants compensation for money he claims he's lost and profits Santogold may have made for using her stage name. He also wants all the items Santogold has ever produced under that name recalled and destroyed.

Santo Gold wears sunglasses and says that since Santogold's back-up dancers wore sunglasses when they recently appeared on Late Night With Conan O'Brien, this constitutes image appropriation. Further, Santo Gold says Santogold admitted to image appropriation in an interview with trashmenagerie.com where she apparently said she was purposely wearing jewelry similar to Santo Gold.

Whether Santogold will still be known by that name or something else when she plays with Coldplay next month remains to be seen. But she'll open for the chart-topping British band at Montreal's Bell Centre on July 29 and Toronto's Air Canada Centre the next night.

In case you're curious, here are some infomercials Santo Gold was in: