Fantastic Negrito

BIOGRAPHY

Born Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz, the story of Fantastic Negrito is a testament to the transformative power of music and the importance of resilience. By now much has been made of Negrito’s unique story – his early years growing up in an orthodox Muslim household, the doomed major label deal that turned him off of the music industry altogether, the near-fatal car crash that permanently damaged his guitar-playing hand—as well as the remarkable redemption arc that began in 2015, when he won the first-ever NPR Tiny Desk Contest. In the years that followed, Negrito would go on to take home three consecutive GRAMMY® Awards for “Best Contemporary Blues Album,” share stages with everyone from Sturgill Simpson to Chris Cornell to Bruce Springsteen, collaborate in the studio with the likes of Sting, E-40, and Tank and the Bangas, perform on countless worldwide headline tours and at such festivals as Lollapalooza, Glastonbury, Newport Folk, and Bryon Bay Blues, and found the Revolution Plantation, an urban farm aimed at youth education and empowerment. Fantastic Negrito’s fifth studio album, 2022’s White Jesus Black Problems, marked the acclaimed first release on his own Storefront Records label.  2023 saw the release of Grandfather Courage, an acoustic reimagining of White Jesus Black Problems recorded with his touring band and hailed by PopMatters as “a compelling, affecting work of acoustic blues and roots music, speaking to the deep currents of blues as an American art form.”