BABY I’M A STAR! THE EMANCIPATED FUTURE-BLUES OF FANTASTIC NEGRITO
IN 1750S VIRGINIA, interracial relationships were illegal. Nature, though, took its course when Elizabeth Gallimore, a Scottish indentured servant, fell for a slave whose name has been lost. The racism of Virginian laws meant that even after Elizabeth had been charged with “co-habiting with a negro”, the children of the union would be “free negroes”; in total there were 50,000 in the future heartland of the Confederacy.
In 1968, their great-great-great-greatgreat-great-great-grandson, Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz, was born. And in 2014, after a chequered but undeniably eventful career as a drug dealer, major label artist, illegal nightclub grandee, legal marijuana farmer and coma survivor, Dphrepaulezz became Fantastic Negrito. Four albums and three Grammys later, he discovered his forebears’ story following an e-mail from a previously unknown cousin. Album number five, White Jesus Black Problems, would tell it.
“I thought of this white Scottish woman who, perhaps while cleaning, had a glimpse of sweating, muscular forbidden fruit and thought, ‘That doesn’t look bad!’ How did it happen? How could they meet up when slaves weren’t allowed to even look at a white person?”
Falling into the family-tree rabbit hole alongside his PhD historian brother, Dphrepaulezz learned much about himself, not least that he is 28 per cent white.
“I had no idea. I pressed a button and it was, ‘Oh shit, I’m white’. As a descendant of slaves, I felt almost guilt. I do view the world and white people a little differently now, but I was always different myself. Growing up in Oakland I was into punk, so the black kids would go, ‘Do you worship the devil, motherfucker?’ In my mid-twenties, I moved to LA to become famous and Jimmy Iovine gave me a million bucks to make an album.”
That album, 1995’s The X Factor by Xavier, didn’t sell. After spending time in a coma following a near-fatal car crash which permanently damaged his guitar-playing hand, Dphrepaulezz was dropped.
“I never thought I’d do music again, I didn’t feel it, wasn’t inspired and no longer cared about being famous. When I eventually started Negrito, I had the wisdom of a grandfather with the freedom of a 17-year-old. Now I’m an artist, not a musician: I still don’t know anything about music and I couldn’t care less whether I play an instrument or not.”
The previous three Fantastic Negrito outings won Best Contemporary Blues Album Grammys. Whittled down from 70 recorded songs, White Jesus Black Problems is far too scattergun to join them. There’s gospel, hip-hop, Joe Meek-style wizardry, World Party-style layering and as much mischief as anger. Prince might have approved, as might Sly Stone.
“What I’m interested in is the freedom to not give a fuck. Prince didn’t in his early days, nor did David Bowie, but they were musical geniuses and they belonged. I’ve never belonged – neither did Grandma Gallimore. As I have to say in the stream of consciousness that is You Don’t Belong Here, 250 years later people are still being told they don’t belong.”
Fantastic Negrito’s White Jesus Black Problems is out now on Storefront. He plays London Jazz Café on July 26 and 27.
“I’m interested in the freedom to not give a fuck.” FANTASTIC NEGRITO