“Live performance is everything. First of all, I have terrible stage fright. But beyond that, once the music starts, it’s OK.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I like being photographed without glasses. I don’t want to be pretentious.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“Just keep being yourself. Keep being yourself, and people recognize it.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I think things happen, and we have no control over them, and what you take from them is really what is important.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“NPR changed my life; I don’t even front.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I had a dream, as young people have quite idealistic dreams and goals, of, ‘I’m going to go to Los Angeles, and I’m going to become a star!’ I did get this huge record deal, and I recorded this music under Xavier. That didn’t really work out.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I knew I was an exhibitionist. I came from a huge family. I found an emotional connection being on stage.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“What I decided was I’d be happier not being in the confines of a corporate infrastructure producing music. That’s when I was free, and it opened up the door to have a different personality and incarnations. That’s really when I had success in my music life. I was able to license my music.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“Prince was a hero. He was the brother, the black man that was a little different. As a kid, you thought, ‘Wow, he’s different. If he can do it, I can do it.’ I read that he was self-taught, so I started teaching myself to play the piano.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I write songs. I perform. I play the guitar. I play the keyboard.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“That’s always the time to quit – when you have nothing to say as an artist and creative person.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“There’s certain artists that are meant to have certain paths and go the way of the corporate world. And then there are artists who are artists.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“My dad was born in 1905, and the men from that period were real men. He prepared me for the world.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I was raised on African music, Harry Belafonte, and the Boston Pops. Then I got a dose of soul and hip-hop. I related to it immediately.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“Jimmy Iovine signed me personally to a million-dollar contract, and I lost my identity for a long time. That system is so predicated on making a hit, or you’re out of here.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“If I can’t be honest with music, forget it.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“Fantastic Negrito is a persona, an incarnation in my third phase.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“My dad was a strict Muslim. He had a lot of rules.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“As long as we have have predatory capitalism, we’ll have guns because the gun industry loves to make money out of guns.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I hitchhiked to L.A. with $100 and a keyboard.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I thought my story was over. But that was when I realised I finally had a story to tell – and it seems to remind people of their own story.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I really loved the hardcore alternative vibe Prince had on ‘Dirty Mind.’”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I think that was always my strength. I was never a great player, but I could write.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“The one thing I had pure in my life was creativity.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“Growing up in the neighborhoods I did in Oakland, you don’t know the Beatles, but I started learning their songs.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“’The Duffler’ is a very familiar story, a story about someone having something and not appreciating it until it’s gone, when it’s too late.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“That makes me very happy as a human being to know what I’m doing is an inspiration to people.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I’m not interested in re-creating the same blues I love so much. I’m interested in pushing boundaries.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“Doing a concert, I look at a room full of different people, and I see you’ve got Muslims, you’ve got Jews, you’ve got Christians, you’ve got gays, you’ve got straights, you’ve got blacks, you’ve got whites. I think, ‘How can I unite these people through song?’”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I came up with the album name ‘Please Don’t Be Dead’ because I felt like we’d lost our way as a society – and I know what happens when you chase the wrong things. It’s the story of my life.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I fear for the lives of my daughters. I am uncertain about what kind of future they will face.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“Art and culture are the greatest weapons against hate agendas, entrenched ideologies, and power structures that harbor and promote the business of divisiveness.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I like going out and looking at people, and they inspire me so much.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“’Fantastic’ is self-explanatory, you know? And the ‘Negrito’ is a way to open up blackness to everyone – you know, make it playful, international. It’s extremely positive in my view; it’s my affair with this music.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“The idea of ‘raw’ music, to me, is honesty: getting people to feel you with the least amount of production possible, the shortest distance traveled emotionally, sonically.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I love the power of music and artistry and feel a responsibility having a platform to preach good things.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I take the purest and hardest forms of music… and come in completely fresh from a production standpoint. It’s like hip-hop production, because there’s a lot of taking the best parts and a lot of the repetitiveness.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“Nothing unifies people more than music, more than that universal riff. The one thing that unifies us and the hope that we can have, especially being an artist, is that we can create music that can build bridges and smash down very bad ideas.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I think once I had lived life, once I had failed enough in this lifetime and got back up a thousand times from failing, I really connected to the blues.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I don’t mind being the voice of the New Oakland to maintain the integrity and edge of it. Old Oakland and New Oakland is one and the same. It’s connected. I aspire to be the bridge between both.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“Your dream can die. You will probably give up. But from there, you can start everything over.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“My life, my failures. I hope that gives people the lesson to rebuild their own lives.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I hope I contribute something useful to the human family. That’s my intention. And I hope that it’s useful to people.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“What did winning a Grammy do for me? It made me want to get rid of my Grammy, pack it away, and never see it again. It made me not want to speak to anyone who wanted to speak about my Grammy.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I want to be an artist, not be in the business of making hit records. Once I figured that out, everything became clear.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I wanted to do life, do something interesting. I ran out of things I wanted to say in my music, so I just put it down, sold all my gear, and put on some overalls and reconnected with the soil.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I heard Skip James, and it pierced me. It felt like punk rock to me, real and raw. It was just one guitar, so simple yet so much expression. I wanted to feel and express like that, to take the shortest path to get to an emotion.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“So-called leaders aren’t doing anything, so it’s become the job of artists like me. We have to get on the front lines and fight for the people who have love and tolerance in their hearts and want to live in a unified world.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I can’t just sit back and write about the club when our democracy is under attack. I have to be a more positive force.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I throw up before every show. I’m thinking about just making it part of the act.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I always call myself a recovering narcissist. I lived my life thinking everything was about me.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“Music is something that’s so powerful and means so much to me.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“The streets spoke to me in a way that religion didn’t.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“’Push back’ is the word; that’s what we gotta do against ignorance. I see so much of it, and it’s dangerous.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“It’s amazing: when you are challenged with less, sometimes you can produce more.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“When I look into the audience, and I just know we understand each other, I can see their faces, and they know what I’m talking about. I feel like I’ve helped. Everything I’ve been through in my life, it helps people. Then that makes it worth it.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“My most revered hero is Robert Johnson. His lyrics are so consistent with rap: the danger, the boldness, the creativity.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I usually go to secondhand stores and find what I can. I like finding interesting things: vests, blazers. I tell the band, ‘We got to look good when we’re up there.’ I learned it from Miles Davis. I read about his suits in his biography. Suits mean you’re getting paid, and I like the idea that he looked good in his suits.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“Slaves and the descendants of slaves created world pop culture. Let’s keep it real and be very respectful about that.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“Usually when tragedy is present, a great art movement is right behind it.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“’In the Pines’ is a very old song dating back to slavery. Lead Belly made it popular.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“Ain’t nobody more punk rock than Robert Johnson, Lead Belly, even Little Richard.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I’m in a collective with the same guys I met on the streets at 12. The greatest investments I ever made were those friendships.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“When I was born, my mother said all the nurses wanted to come see the colored baby.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“Everybody agreed I had all this talent, but I didn’t know what to make of it.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I became Fantastic Negrito, and I felt like there was a rawness and an honesty in that music that I could relate to. That I was ready, finally, in my life to be that honest with myself.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“Exercise is good for you, so I’m always walking. I don’t drink sodas or eat fast food, either.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“Blues purists may hate what I do sometimes because it’s a little dirtier.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I had this dream that you get this record deal, and you’re a star, and everybody loves you – but I was a youngster, and it didn’t work out that way.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“When I was a youngster, I wrote all this music – it just came out of me – and I think record executives were like, ‘Oh, wow, he’s a genius, let’s give him a million dollars!’ But the minute I started producing the records, they’d be like, ‘Oh, my God, you’re terrible! You’re all over the place! We can’t market this!’”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I could have worked with great people like Nile Rodgers, which I regret. I don’t have many regrets, but I remember he’d shown some interest, and I was just in my own world, man.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“There came a point where I did give up on music, but I’m the kind of person that when I face obstacles, I become more determined. It’s just something weird within me.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“Without busking, there is no Fantastic Negrito.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I want to make other people around me smarter and more powerful.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“We gotta bring new ideas to the table and empower each other.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“We should not fear what is new, but we should not throw out that which is in the past but is still valuable.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I think I was made for live music. It’s just great.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I just take things one day at a time. I’m just thankful that I have my legs, my arms, my eyes.”
― Fantastic Negrito
“I try to be as positive a person as possible.”
― Fantastic Negrito
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