Fantastic Negrito – Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?

Posted on September 4, 2020 by aaamc

Title: Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?
Artist: Fantastic Negrito
Label: Cooking Vinyl
Formats: CD, LP, Digital
Release date: July 17, 2020

GRAMMY award winning artist Fantastic Negrito has returned with his new album, Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? While the Oakland native’s 2018 release, Please Don’t Be Dead, focused on songs that embrace love and unity, the musical framework for his new project more closely mirrors the pressing issues in the current social, economic and political climate. Using his signature rock-soul style, he presents timely topics such as the benefits of communication, particularly during the pandemic, when so many are battling with or recovering from mental illness. Negrito believes that if we talk more openly about what’s happening in our lives, we can work toward finding healing within our communities by eliminating isolation.

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Fantastic Negrito – Please Don’t Be Dead

Posted on July 3, 2018 by aaamc

Title: Please Don’t Be Dead

Artist: Fantastic Negrito

Label: Cooking Vinyl

Format: Digital, LP, CD

Release Date: June 15, 2018

Oakland native Xavier Dphrepaulezz, professionally known as Fantastic Negrito, is an award winning musical artist and story teller. Coming back from a decade long hiatus, Negrito returned to the music industry in 2016 with more fire and flare then before, releasing The Last Days of Oakland which won him his first Grammy Award. More recently, Negrito was featured on an episode of the popular Fox television series, Empire.

Negrito’s latest release, Please Don’t Be Dead, is a rock-soul album that presents issues, warnings and solutions that have everything to do with American society and the people that live within it. Negrito wants people to “stay woke” by being aware that what is happening currently in our nation is not a normal occurrence. The album cover art, a real-life photo of Negrito coming out of a three week coma caused by a previous car accident, represents his efforts to leave dark times in the past. By choosing to move forward and leaving behind hatred, blame, disrespect and hopelessness, Negrito stands with his community to embrace love, unity, empathy and compassion.

Regarding the title track, Negrito said “Please Don’t Be Dead” tells the story of a man standing over something he cares about that is wounded. He’s looking around, and he’s saying: “Do Something.”

“Plastic Hamburgers” is a call to the listener to break down the walls that keep people separated from one another in American society, harkening to issues of racism, classism, sexism, poor government policy and regulation. The chorus, “Let’s break out these chains, let’s burn it down,” suggests that we are slaves to the American hegemonic machine, referred to as a “bomb with a winning hand.” Negrito suggests we can overcome this domination if we stop buying into the idealistic pressures of American society.

“Bad Guys” continues with this narrative, suggesting that dominions create the evil, charging us to fear it while swearing to protect us from it. According to Negrito, a “bad guy” is a figure, thing or idea that we can point to as the blame for all the problems we create. He goes on to suggest we should look in the mirror before we start blaming others for the issues we create due to the consequences of our choices.

“A Letter to Fear and Transgender Biscuits” is the silver lining of the album. Despite the horrible things happening in America, Negrito claims, “We can carry on.” In doing so, however, we don’t have to accept the current issues as the norm. Negrito offers his solution to the problem by standing with his friends and his community who have agreed that, “Hope will never die!” The song encourages everyone to keep fighting against the present violent norms by pressing back against it with love as a community: “All the people with love in your heart, get unified, get organized….. Unity.” By unifying and organizing, standing against the issues that are being pressed upon us to be accepted as the norm, we can elicit change. That is the history of the positive paradigm shifts in our nation’s past.

“The Suits That Won’t Come Off” is a song that encourages perspective empathy. As Negrito sings, “How do you sleep at night when you have stolen from me,” he is asking his audience to stand in the shoes of those in other circumstances in order to gain compassion. How different could this world be if people respected those who are unlike them? Negrito ends his album with the funk and gospel influenced, “Bull Shit Anthem.” The chorus of the song sums up what Negrito wants us to do with all the issues presented on the album. Along with love, standing with the community, showing empathy and having compassion, we need to “Take that bullshit, turn it into good shit!”

Please Don’t Be Dead is a fitting wake-up call from an artist who reclaimed his consciousness both physically and artistically, and is now striving for others to follow his example. It’s a request we all should heed, as Negrito instructs, before it’s too late.

Reviewed by Bobby Davis

Fantastic Negrito – The Last Days of Oakland

Posted on August 1, 2016 by aaamc

Title: The Last Days of Oakland

Artist: Fantastic Negrito

Label: Blackball Universe

Formats: CD, LP, MP3

Release Date: June 3, 2016

Perhaps best known as the 2015 winner of NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest for his song “Lost in a Crowd,” Oakland-based Fantastic Negrito releases an album that is steeped in the blues and simultaneously strikingly contemporary. Xavier Dphrepaulezz, who uses “Fantastic Negrito” as his stage name, has had a career rocked with the ups and downs of the entertainment industry—rising to, and falling from, a disastrous brush with stardom in the 1990s, undergoing a crippling hand injury after a car accident, and settling down for awhile. The stage persona of Fantastic Negrito represents a return to the entertainment business, on his own terms this time around.

And what a return—The Last Days of Oakland is an album with sprawling ambitions that delivers. One more in a year of highly personal releases that document broader societal problems, Fantastic Negrito’s songs deal with class and poverty (“Working Poor,” “Hump Through the Winter”), race, and redemption (“Nothing Without You”). The record is also diverse sonically, but it’s useful to compare the combination of blues sound and punk spirit that animates The Last Days of Oakland with the blues punk of groups like the White Stripes. In fact, Negrito takes a number of cues from Jack White, from vintage blues guitar playing to minimalistic 4-on-the-floor arrangements—“Rant Rushmore” could easily have appeared on Icky Thump, although Negrito draws a bit more gospel into the mix than White would have. Comparisons to earlier alt-rockers are not remiss either. Fantastic Negrito’s version of the traditional song “In the Pines” (recorded by everyone and his brother, but perhaps made most famous by Leadbelly), channels Kurt Cobain’s rendition of the song as “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” on Nirvana’s 1993 MTV Unplugged, keeping Cobain’s raw emotionalism, but fleshing out the orchestration with a full band, electric guitars, and keyboards.

On The Last Days of Oakland, we hear a musician who has clearly paid his dues. Fantastic Negrito knows his sound and has found his voice as a singer, songwriter and guitarist. This is a definitive performance from a rocker with a few bones to pick.

Reviewed by Matthew Alley