WKU News

Potter College of Arts & Letters Cultural Enhancement Series and the Southern Circit of Independent Filmmakers hosted a showing of “SANTOS Skin to Skin” at the Captial Arts Center, on Thursday, Oct. 17.

“SANTOS Skin to Skin” is a documentary about the life and music of John Santos, a seven-time Grammy-winning musician, teacher and activist. Santos specializes in jazz and traditional Afro-Latin drumming. 

The film’s director, producer and editor, Kathryn Golden, and the director of photography and producer, Ashley James, said that being from the Bay Area in California, they have also been aware of Santos’ work. 

The pair said they had never considered making a documentary on Santos until their friend suggested it. 

“It’s sort of like you’re in the forest and don’t see the trees. But here was the tree right in front of us,” James said.

The movie follows Santos’s life. He grew up in San Francisco and was exposed to music at an early age through his grandparents, who were musicians on both his mother’s and father’s sides. 

Santos in the film explains how it is important for him to educate people as well as entertain them. The film shows him teaching classes or talking between songs in concert on the history of drum rhythm. 

Santos said in the film that drumming came to America from Africa, blending with the newly emerging Latin culture.

Golden said it was Santos’ explanation of the history and migration of drumming that sparked her inspiration. 

“He was describing the migration of rhythms and how while he was talking, I started imagining like the map of the world just completely differently than any map I’d ever seen before,” Golden said

The film shows that Santos often uses his heritage and drumming to be a voice for social change.

In the film, Santos protests the removal of Latin Jazz as a category from the Grammys, getting the genre reinstated after fighting for over a year.

The film covers Santos’ development in the music world as well as his family life. A major beat of the film was spent on the premature death of Santos’ first daughter who passed a month after birth.

Golden said that Santos originally did not want to speak about the death of his daughter. However, over the film’s nine-year production, Golden said, the relationship she and Santos built allowed him to open up about his experience.

“It was that it just took time to earn trust so that John [Santos] and Aida [Santos’ wife] felt comfortable going near that subject with us on camera,” said Golden.

Reflecting on the film James said he believes he has “the greatest job in the world.” He said that in his own way, he can change people’s lives for the better and he believes this film has accomplished that.

News Reporter Anthony Clauson can be reached at anthony.clauson994@topper.wku.edu.