{"id":19740,"date":"2020-10-26T05:30:06","date_gmt":"2020-10-26T09:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=19740"},"modified":"2020-09-24T08:34:22","modified_gmt":"2020-09-24T12:34:22","slug":"fantastic-negrito-these-are-my-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/10\/26\/fantastic-negrito-these-are-my-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Fantastic Negrito: ‘These are My Friends’"},"content":{"rendered":"

This feature appeared previously in<\/em> SF Weekly — bk<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

When Xavier Dphrepaulezz reinvented himself as Fantastic Negrito, his self-described \u201cblack roots music for everyone\u201d struck a chord with the listening public. While he had released an album in the \u201890s as Xavier, the life-changing aftermath of a serious auto accident in 1999 led to his reboot as Fantastic Negrito. And the Oakland-based musician\u2019s 21st<\/sup> century work has proven to be far deeper, more thoughtful and incisive. Both 2016\u2019s The Last Days of Oakland<\/i> and Please Don\u2019t Be Dead<\/i> from 2018 earned Grammy Awards.<\/p>\n

Those albums resonate with an audience receptive to music that\u2019s about<\/i> something. Fantastic Negrito\u2019s debut album explores life in his adopted home city, combining field-holler blues with a modern, urban sensibility: it\u2019s blues that almost never sounds<\/i> like blues. And while the first pressings of Please Don\u2019t Be Dead<\/i> may have featured a grainy cover photo of Dphrepaulezz in his hospital bed, recovering from the car crash, the title refers instead to the American dream. Fantastic Negrito makes catchy music, but it\u2019s music of substance. And that substance is on brilliant display with his third album, Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?<\/i> released in August.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not here to make you feel comfortable,\u201d asserts Fantastic Negrito. His hard-won, urban perspective is about more than merely drawing vignettes; there\u2019s a foundation of searching for workable, practical answers to life\u2019s challenges. The theme of Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?<\/i> is mental illness, he says. \u201cI\u2019m not talking about the guy who\u2019s talking to himself on the street,\u201d he explains. \u201cThat\u2019s the obvious<\/i> mental health crisis. This has to do more with you, me: how are we<\/i> coping with this proliferation of the internet and this access to media all the time?\u201d<\/p>\n

Fantastic Negrito\u2019s themes tend toward the universal, but on his third album, he drills down to explore things at an even more street-level, personal vantage point. \u201cI made the album micro rather than macro,\u201d he says. \u201cTo be about my neighbor, my friend.\u201d There\u2019s a relentless onslaught of information coming our way; he says that challenges us. \u201cHow do we process this media machine that tells us what to think? It tells us whose lives matter, what slogans to say, who to sling these slogans at.\u201d He believes that dogmatic mantra \u201con the left and the right entrenches us so much that it hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The current pandemic has lifted the lid, ripped away the mask to show just how sick we are, he believes. \u201cAs a society, we knew we had these problems and these pitfalls, but I think that this virus reveals just how broken and dysfunctional this great country \u2013 a great giant, a great force \u2013 really is.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Fantastic Negrito has a prescription to treat this collective illness: therapy. \u201cAnd I did it the way I know about therapy,\u201d he says. \u201cWhich is beats, hand claps, organ, guitar, vocals.\u201d That idea has been a through-line connecting all of Fantastic Negrito\u2019s work. As early as 2016 he would welcome audiences by announcing, \u201cThis isn\u2019t a concert; this is group therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his third full-length release, Fantastic Negrito allows his core group of musicians \u2013 guitarist Masa Kohama, keyboardist Lionel Holoman Jr. and bassist Cornelius Mims \u2013 to stretch out like never before. Several tracks \u2013 including the deeply funky \u201cYour Sex is Overrated\u201d and the groove of \u201cChocolate Samurai\u201d \u2013 feature multiple instrumental solos. \u201cI let them off the leash,\u201d Negrito says with a laugh. \u201cI wanted to show a little more of the musicians, and I wanted to open the game up.\u201d Select guest artists \u2013 renowned Oakland rapper E-40 on \u201cSearching for Captain Save a Hoe,\u201d fellow Tiny Desk Contest winner Tank (of Tank and the Bangas) on \u201cI\u2019m So Happy I Cry\u201d \u2013 add even more texture to a consistently engaging set of songs.<\/p>\n

Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?<\/i> also features more of Negrito\u2019s instrumental work than previous releases. In his Oakland studio, Negrito begins each project alone, building the tracks himself. Only later does he bring in the other musicians to replace some of his parts. The injuries sustained in the wreck years ago left him with limited use of his hands. Yet on the new record, he kept a lot of his guitar work; it captured the essence of what the songs were about. \u201cOn \u2018Chocolate Samurai,\u2019 there was something about the way I was turning the guitar riff around,\u201d he says, quoting Kohama\u2019s reaction when he heard it: \u201cIt\u2019s so bad, it\u2019s good; I can\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fantastic Negrito recalls the inspiration for one of the album\u2019s strongest cuts. The idea for \u201cKing Frustration\u201d came when he saw his \u201ccrackhead, drug addict cousin walking down the street, the same street she\u2019s been walking down for probably 40 years.\u201d He decided then and there: \u201cI\u2019m going to talk about her. And that bass line, that\u2019s gotta be about her.\u201d The song\u2019s bass line represents his cousin\u2019s gait on that street.<\/p>\n

The man born Xavier Dphrepaulezz believes that his latest album is his most personal to date. He succinctly describes Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?<\/i> as \u201cmore funky, more upbeat, more moving. This album is like a 50 pound fish on a line. And I\u2019m just, \u2018Holy shit, when am I going to land this thing?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The micro-focus of Fantastic Negrito\u2019s latest album still conveys his larger, more universal concerns. \u201cI think that everything starts at the top,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd the signal at the top of this country is, \u2018Hey, it’s okay to be bigoted, it’s okay to make fun of disabled people, it’s okay to be racist, it’s okay to speak disparagingly about women.\u2019 This is our government \u2026 we have a guy who helps perpetuate that, so people feel like, \u2018Yeah, I can say this. I can do this because it seems like it’s okay.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet Fantastic Negrito somehow remains positive, and the music reflects that. \u201cC\u2019mon, you know me: I\u2019m optimistic, man. I believe we can<\/i>, we must<\/i>, we will<\/i>. I believe it can all be done. No one\u2019s more optimistic, but I\u2019m also realistic. I think in order to remain optimistic you\u2019ve got to be real about the work that you need to do.\u201d And with his music and lyrics, Fantastic Negrito strives to do just that: it\u2019s his mantra: \u201cGo make an album again; go be real. Go make people uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stay tuned for more from my latest interview with Fantastic Negrito. — bk<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This feature appeared previously in SF Weekly — bk When Xavier Dphrepaulezz reinvented himself as Fantastic Negrito, his self-described \u201cblack roots music for everyone\u201d struck a chord with the listening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19741,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,31,41,49,73],"tags":[2868],"class_list":["post-19740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-funk","category-interview","category-new-release","category-vinyl","tag-fantastic-negrito","cat-9-id","cat-31-id","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19742,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19740\/revisions\/19742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}