Even with two consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary Blues Album, the artist Fantastic Negrito is still just a hustler from the streets of Oakland.
“Hey, you gotta be a hustler to win a Grammy too,” Fantastic laughs, “hustling don’t stop, it just changes.
“The kind of hustling you're doing changes but you’re always hustling and you’re always out there on the grind, and that’s a good thing. We’re hustling for good.”
These days, hustling for Fantastic means pushing the stylistic boundary of the blues; his latest triumph is his 2018 album 'Please Don't Be Dead', which earned Fantastic his second Grammy earlier this year. “It’s a little bit sweeter because I was definitely thinking with this album ‘hey, just go even more outside of the box’,” Fantastic says of the recent win.
“I didn’t really expect to be acknowledged or rewarded for that because sometimes the music industry can be a machine, but luckily the people voting are your peers. I like to push the limits of what contemporary blues means, so I was surprised and it felt very good the second time. Two-time Grammy winner sounds better than Grammy winner,” he adds with a laugh.
Although 'Please Don't Be Dead' continues to redefine modern preconceptions of blues music much as its predecessor 'The Last Days Of Oakland' had, Fantastic says he never strays too far from what the blues is all about. “I never go in thinking ‘blues, blues’, I go in thinking ‘hey, truth, truth’; like stay to the truth, stay to the roots,” he explains.
“I always think of Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf or Robert Johnson, or any of these great heroes of mine – would they really want us sticking with the same thing and making cliché music? Nope. I'm glad I don’t have one, 12-bar blues song on the record.”
It's in the early legends of blues that we find the true sprit of what Fantastic is all about with his music – tapping into the raw emotion of life and distilling that feeling in to sound and fury. “I like to make a turn because I know I can do that… I just want a challenge and get more interesting things, and really dig into the bassline.
“I wrote this record mostly on the bass to just find that groove and that sweet spot, and dig into the essence of what does it feel like more than what it is. What it is is what it is, but what does it feel like is far more important to me. That’s what I want as an artist, that’s what I love to express.”
Fantastic goes on to further explain how his basslines are often drawn from the people he knew in his time hustling on the streets of Oakland, a period of his life that deeply informs the music and lyrics he creates.
“I grew up in gangster Oakland, you know what I mean? I grew up around gangsters, pushers, pimps, dope dealers – a lot of these characters stayed in my head and a lot of my basslines reflect the way they walked down the street.”
Fantastic returns to Australia for only the second time this April when he plays Bluesfest as well as a string of theatre sideshows, and after what happened last time Fantastic says he can't wait to get back here.
“I'm very excited because I've only played Australia once and it was a very positive experience, and I look forward to coming back,” he says.
“It took a while but I'm very excited about returning. I think Australians really know their music and I think they really appreciate what we’re doing, so that’s a good feeling. It’s also the first time I ever signed a naked woman's behind in public; I thought 'wow, these Australians don’t hold back',” he laughs.
'Please Don't Be Dead' is the third album released under the Fantastic Negrito moniker after his 2014 self-titled debut and 2016's 'The Last Days Of Oakland', which gave him his first Grammy in 2017.
Prior to 'Fantastic Negrito' he released an album via Interscope Records entitled 'The X Factor' in 1996 as Xavier, taken from his full name – Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz. Following a near-fatal car crash in 1999 he was released from his contract and resumed his life as a hustler.
It was the 'Fantastic Negrito' album in 2014 that saw him rise up as a blues prophet as he set about making what he called 'black roots music for everyone'. “I'm a middle-aged guy – I'm no pretty white girl and I am not a rapper, you know what I mean? So I was a middle-aged guy walking down the street with a guitar and I feel like I had something to contribute.
“I feel like writing songs like 'Night Has Turned To Day' and 'Honest Man’, or covering ‘In The Pines’ [Leadbelly] that I was making a contribution to the world I was living in and that’s what I continued with on the 'Please Don't Be Dead' album.”
Though his life now has taken a decisive turn from his teen years spent hustling and selling drugs, Fantastic remains an Oakland boy at heart, living and working on the same blocks he used to ply his nefarious trade. “I don’t try to stray too far,” he says.
“This is my home, these are my roots and I always come back to them. I put my studio around the place where I used to grow up because it keeps me very grounded. When I won the second Grammy I came home and washed dishes, and that's what I like.”
Fantastic Negrito is an artist whose narrative is just as important as the music he produces, channelling all the desperation and angst of everyday living into vibrant missives that call longingly to the hearts of life's aimless wanderers; a modern-day Robert Johnson shepherding the lost and lonely.
“These are all things in life that we’re all going through, everybody – we’re living, breathing, failing, succeeding, dying, birth – it’s all incredible, the journey of life,” he postulates.
“I always wanted my music to feel like I was sitting on my grandmother’s porch and that’s what I go for; my shows are like church without the religion. As long as the music and my story is a contribution and it helps people, that really gets me excited and is what I wanted this Fantastic Negrito journey to be.”
