Soundcheck

Self-described “lifelong hustler,” Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz, is better known by his stage name Fantastic Negrito, and makes “black roots music for everyone” - blues with a giant undercurrent of punkass. Fantastic Negrito’s songs tell of a hard life with some complete do-overs and a few near-death experiences. Coming from a crossroads with optional deals, his music might be informed just as much by California funk-punk (Bad Brains and Fishbone), hip hop, thrash metal, punk, Prince and his self-taught ways - specifically Dirty Mind (according to this Guardian interview) and the blues records he’d heard as a kid, visiting family in southern Virginia. Lately, his tunes have been placed and licensed for TV and film series (Empire, Hand of God, and in the case of his song “Working Poor,” Bernie Sanders’ political campaign.) But back in the early 2000's he had co-founded a record label, which grew into Oakland-based multimedia creative collective, the Blackball Universe cooperative, fed and financed with the publish