Santeria
by Sublime
- 90
- BPM
- E major
- Key
- 12B
- Camelot
- 68
- Danceability
- 2
- Acousticness
Bradley Nowell sang "Santeria", but he died in 1996, before the song was released as a single on January 7, 1997. It came from the third album by the American ska punk band Sublime, and it reused the bassline and guitar riff of "Lincoln Highway Dub" from the earlier album Robbin' the Hood.
The narrator begins by saying he does not practice Santeria, an Afro-Cuban religion, and goes on to tell of a jealous ex-boyfriend planning revenge on the man who stole his girlfriend. Nowell calls the man "Sancho" and the girlfriend "Heina", terms from Chicano culture, with Heina adapted from the Spanish word reina, meaning queen.
The video was filmed after Nowell's death, with a cameo from him in stock footage, and played the story out as a Western. Tom Lister, Jr. played Sancho and Nowell's widow Troy played La Heina. Nowell's dalmatian Lou Dog appeared with the other band members remembering him, and bit Lister on the lip when he got too close. The song was a moderate US crossover hit, selling over 5 million copies and reaching the top 5 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart.
Santeria runs at 90 BPM, the tempo of hip-hop, R&B and reggaeton. In classical terms it sits in andante territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.67 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 667 ms. It is in E major, Camelot 12B, which shares its notes with C# minor and mixes cleanly with A major and B major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.