Fantastic Negrito
| Fantastic Negrito | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz |
| Born |
1968 (age 48–49) Massachusetts |
| Origin | Oakland, California |
| Genres | Roots music, blues, R&B |
| Instruments | Guitar, vocals |
| Years active | 1996-present |
| Labels | Blackball Universe |
| Website |
www |
Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz (born 1968),[1] better known by his stage name Fantastic Negrito, is an African-American singer-songwriter whose music has spanned blues, R&B, and roots music.[2]
Early life
Negrito was born in western Massachusetts, the eighth of fifteen children.[3] His father was a deeply religious Somali Muslim who, Negrito recalls, had "a lot of rules" for his children.[4] Negrito and his family relocated to Oakland when he was 12 years old.[5] A lifelong hustler, he began selling drugs at a young age in Oakland, and in 2016, he told the Guardian, "We were all selling drugs, man. We all carried pistols. There was a crack epidemic."[4] He became inspired to teach himself how to play music after listening to Prince's album Dirty Mind and hearing that Prince was a self-taught musician. He learned to play music by sneaking into music classrooms at the University of California Berkeley despite not being a student there.[4]
Career
Negrito made a record deal with Prince's former manager, and later, in 1993, made another deal, this one with Interscope Records.[4] On January 9, 1996, he released his first album, The X Factor, under the mononym Xavier. The album was released on Lexington House Records and distributed by Interscope.[4][6] He was in a near-fatal car crash in 1999, which left him in a coma for three weeks;[2] he has since said that he felt that this crash "released" him because Interscope terminated their contract with him, after which he resumed hustling.[4] In 2007, he stopped making music, but he returned in 2014, describing his new musical style as "black roots music for everyone".[2] In 2015, he won NPR's Tiny Desk Contest.[5] In 2016, his album The Last Days of Oakland was released on the Blackball Universe label.[7] Negrito won his first Grammy in 2017, when The Last Days of Oakland received the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album.[8]
Discography
- The X Factor (Interscope, 1996) (as Xavier)
- Fantastic Negrito (Black Ball Universe, 2014)
- The Last Days of Oakland (Blackball Universe, 2016)
References
- ↑ "Fantastic Negrito 1968-". Worldcat.
- 1 2 3 McFarland, K.M. (2015-09-17). "7 Facts to Know About Fantastic Negrito Before He Blows Up". Wired.
- ↑ Vaziri, Aidin (2015-04-28). "Fantastic Negrito: Oakland musician lives up to new name". San Francisco Chronicle.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Paphides, Pete (2016-08-02). "Fantastic Negrito: the drug-dealing hustler who became Bernie Sanders' favourite bluesman". The Guardian.
- 1 2 Heller, Jason (2016-05-26). "Review: Fantastic Negrito, 'The Last Days Of Oakland'". NPR.
- ↑ Borzillo, Carrie (1996-01-20). "Popular Uprisings". Billboard. Vol. 108 no. 3. p. 17.
- ↑ Loss, Robert (2016-07-13). "Fantastic Negrito's "Working Poor" Is the Soundtrack to the Summer of '16". PopMatters.
- ↑ Pereira, Alyssa (12 February 2017). "Fantastic Negrito wins first Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues album". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 19 February 2017.