Fantastic Negrito

Xavier Dphrepaulezz, the roots/blues artist known as Fantastic Negrito, had been around a few blocks before making a popular breakthrough in his mid 40s. Raised in a large Muslim family in western Massachusetts, he left home at age 12 when his family moved to Oakland, CA, hit the streets and never saw his father again. Influenced by early Prince, he learned to play keyboards by sneaking into UC Berkeley practice rooms; at the same time he was selling crack and carrying a pistol. His hustling ended when he was robbed with a gun to his head; the next day he hitchhiked to Los Angeles and began hustling demo tapes instead. A friend got one of his tapes to Prince's manager Joe Ruffalo who began grooming him for stardom; the buzz was strong enough that Jimmy Iovine, then the most powerful exec in the music business, personally signed him to Interscope.  Under the name Xavier he released one album, The X Factor, in 1995. His life as an aspiring pop star came to a quick end when he had a near-fatal car accident in 1999; he spent three weeks in a coma and required physical therapy to regain the use of his hands, He continued working in Los Angeles, licensing songs to films and running an illegal nightclub; he also bought a quarter-acre farm and grew marijuana. Finally he quit music for a number of years, returning to Oakland and running an art gallery. He only picked up a guitar again to play Beatles songs to entertain his son, and once he began writing again he gravitated toward old-school soul and blues rather than the commercial funk of old; he called the new style "black roots music for everyone". His 2015 album, The Last Days of Oakland, took the gentrification of his city as the jumping-off point for a set of songs about homelessness, corruption and working-class struggles. One fan of the album was Bernie Sanders, who invited Negrito to perform at rallies in New Hampshire and Nevada. Now performing live with a band, Negrito built a new following through appearances at the Outside Lands festival and NPR's Tiny Desk concert; the album ultimately won the Best Electric Blues Grammy in 2017.  The followup album, 2018's  Please Don't Be Dead, was more ambitious in its lyrics and music, adding heavier rock and psychedelia to the mix. It was accompanied by his first international tour.