Fantastic Negrito

It is a story worthy of a novel — the kind often lived by great artists — that of Fantastic Negrito, born Xavier Dphrepaulezz in Massachusetts as the eighth of fifteen children before his family moved to Oakland, California. At the age of twelve, he left a family home he considered too strict and survived on the streets. By eighteen, realizing his lifestyle was becoming dangerously self-destructive, he discovered Prince’s album Dirty Mind and found his calling in music, teaching himself to play multiple instruments.

Determined to learn, he attended Berkeley classes unofficially, watching students rehearse and writing his first songs. One of his demos eventually reached Joe Ruffalo, Prince’s manager. In 1996, he released his first album. But in 1999, a near-fatal car accident changed everything: three weeks in a coma, broken arms and legs, and a complete withdrawal from music for five years — until the day he picked up an old guitar again to entertain his son.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Dphrepaulezz reinvented himself as Fantastic Negrito, performing on the streets of San Francisco because he believed passers-by were the hardest audience to win over. In 2014, he released his first EP and described his sound as “Black Roots Music for Everyone.” With The Last Days of Oakland in 2016, he delivered an album filled with rage, urgency and truth. The record won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album in 2017.

His rise did not stop there. Successful albums followed in 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022. In 2023, the song Oh Betty received a Grammy nomination. That same year, Fantastic Negrito joined Bruce Springsteen’s tour as an opening act. In June 2024, he released the song Undefeated Eyes as a duet with Sting.