Having just been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best American Roots Performance for his song ‘Oh Betty’, Fantastic Negrito (real name Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz) today announces a special tour which focuses upon his acclaimed multi-genre album/film project ‘White Jesus Black Problems’. The tour offers fans the first opportunity to see the film on the big screen, and each show will also include a short solo acoustic live performance and a Q&A.
Part love story, part history lesson, ‘White Jesus Black Problems’ is an exhilarating ode to the power of family and the enduring resilience of our shared humanity. Its concept is based on the true story of Fantastic Negrito’s seventh generation white Scottish grandmother, an indentured servant, living in a common law marriage with his seventh generation African-American enslaved grandfather in open defiance of the racist, separatist, laws of 1750s colonial Virginia
A larger than life character, Fantastic Negrito’s own story is stranger than fiction. He first released an album in 1996, but a near fatal car crash in 1999 effectively ended the first chapter of his career. It resulted in him spending three weeks in a coma and initially losing almost all movement in his right hand, drastically limiting his ability to play guitar.
Years later - and after arduous physical therapy - he started busking on the subway, purely for the love of playing music. Effectively reborn under his new artist identity of Fantastic Negrito, his career got underway when his phenomenal, charismatic performance won NPR Music’s prestigious Tiny Desk Concert Contest.
Three of his five studio albums to date have won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues album: ‘The Last Days of Oakland’, ‘Please Don’t Be Dead’ and ‘Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?’. He has toured with artists as varied as Sturgill Simpson and Chris Cornell, collaborated with Sting and E-40, launched his own Storefront Records label, and founded the Revolution Plantation, an urban farm aimed at youth education and empowerment. He is also confirmed to play a show inItaly in March 2023 as guest to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
