Interview: Fantastic Negrito

RADIO BURGERFUEL: You have one of the most interesting stories out there. From drugs, guns, hustling the streets, a Major label record deal, a car crash, a coma, a redemption, family, and then, finally, Fantastic Negrito.

FANTASTIC NEGRITO: I think you kind of summed it up pretty good. I'm waiting for the movie now.

I'd love to see that - I'd pay to see that. So I heard that you actually snuck into UC Berkeley to learn music. Is that how music came to you?

Yeah, I was I think about a senior in high school or right out of high school and trying to find stuff to do. So I would fake being a student and I used to go up to the practice room and just listen to what was going on around me. And it was usually students playing scales…I didn't really know what a scale was, but I thought since they’re at the universities - they must know something. I proceeded then to listen and learn, soaked it up, and I had it down.

How did that  translate to actually getting out there and playing music?

Well I actually found out pretty quick that I was going to be a songwriter. I wasn't going to be some brilliant, flashy player. I really had an interest in storytelling and being a songwriter. And that's what really came to me. I thought, “Wow, songs, that's a great way to communicate with the world.” And yeah, just learned to play and then I really just snuck around with my own sequencers and beat machines, so that was the beginning, and that was the map.

Had you found your voice by then? The voice that we'd kind of know as Fantastic Negrito today?

Oh, absolutely not. I had to travel the landscape first, and I figured then I'd have something to write about. I had no idea who I was going to be. I was a youngster. At that age when you're an artist I just wanted to see how much I could consume. More, more, more. So that's where I was as an artist. And then it took galaxies to get here. Mountains of failure, oceans of drama. Oceans of drama and mountains of failure. That's what made this dude shine.

And shine you do. Shine you do…

The other thing I wanted to ask you about from your past, which intrigued me a bit, was Club Bingo. Which is a club that you used to run, yeah?

Well yeah, I thought well hell, I'd go to a nightclub and play and I thought, “Wow, being in LA, hey it's $20 for parking and $20 for two drinks and you see some band,” and I'm like, “Well that sucks.”I lived in a warehouse in South Central and people thought, “No one is going to come there.” One day I came home and took a sledgehammer and started breaking down my walls and I said, “Why live in a warehouse when I can just open up an illegal night club?”

I made sure I had fire hazards and fire exits and sprinklers, then I proceeded to start a club where people could probably spend $20 and stay the whole night from midnight to six in the morning. See great, great music and eat some food and have a great time. Have some drinks, and I thought that was a good way to make us fizzy.

Do you look back on that time with happiness?

Yeah, of course, I think I look back on all times with happiness because this is just a journey that we're in. This is happening, so we're living it. The tragedy is interesting, the defeat is interesting, and so are the triumphs. They're all part of what the whole story is.

Obviously, in the last few years things have started happening. Tiny Desk, you've released your debut album LP, you've won a Grammy. Is where you pictured yourself five years ago as where you are now?

No. I just pictured myself being a happy guy. I wasn't looking for any of this stuff, you know. I know people are like, “Your music's not genre specific.” And for blues people there's too much rock and for rock people there's too much soul and for soul people there's too much blues. I just went through hearing that all the time, but I just thought that “Hey, we're good.” I have no interest in being a pop star and I just wanted to play music and be fulfilled. That's what I did. I think it's the time when you're not asking for stuff that it probably happens for you. I just want to continue on that path.

Is that funny that people say, “You're too much of this genre and not enough of this one.” Surely most people don't just like listening to one type of music, right? Music lovers, they love music.

The people don't say it. I think the gatekeeper says it. He who sits in the Ivory Tower with his repressed fantasy of the world. And how you and I should all fit into it, because why not? Now at this point in my life I was not interested in it at all. So it's fun to be Fantastic Negrito because I don't live by any of that stuff. And I have no interest in it.

Some of what you're saying is quite apparent on your new album “Please Don't Be Dead" because there is a nice combination of sounds in there. Obviously that typical roots blues sound that people assume Fantastic Negrito as, but there's also a kind of softer side and a lot of funky moments in there as well.

Yeah I never think about that stuff, whether it's going to be funky or soft. I'm a songwriter, I like songs. I love what David Bowie and people like that did, and Miles Davis. Really early Prince stuff where it's just doing it and just an artist in the beautiful moment. You try to make that connection with people.

I'm not a political artist. I'm not an activist, but I am an artist and I thought, “You know what, I really like writing about what's going on, what's happening around me in my life.” And then I like creating something that I can contribute to that what's going on and hopefully be of value. I think that's what the human journey is about.

It's interesting that you say that you're not necessarily being political because as I listen to the music and listen to the lyrics it does seem reasonably political. What you're saying is that's just more commentary on your part?

I can't think of an artist being political, it's weird. I don't know. I'm not saying like, “Eff Donald Trump,” in my songs. I'm not saying, “I'm with her.” I don't see it.

I'm really interested in what's going on in this world. Lots going on and it sucks or it's beautiful. That's usually the spectrum, man. You know, we all have a voice.

“Please Don't Be Dead," I don't know, was like, “Hey, I live in this country and the world seems worried about it.” I hope that all the things that we said that we are and that we aspire to be, I hope they're not dead. I don't know if that's political. I think that's more of, “Hey, I'm a guy. I live here. I think we can do better than what we're doing.”

Maybe that's what the world needs?

I think I like trying. We can try to be better. I think bigotry sucks, racism sucks, sexism sucks. Classism, and unfair treatment of people, that stuff sucks. I'm in that camp. I don't care where you are on the spectrum politically, if you don't treat people right, if you're not nice to people, it doesn't matter what your political affiliation is if you're not decent to people. And I want to be in that camp.

I'll join you in that camp. I'll join you.

Thank you. That's a good place to be. I like that. It feels good. As a producer I was like, “Well, I really want to focus on risk. I want to focus on chance. I want to expand the boundaries, man. I want to make albums like 1968, you know, Electric Ladyland,” What's the one by the Beatles-The White Album, especially for me, is like wow let's push the boundaries, who cares? Let's just do it.

Let's connect with people. It's about love. You know, forget the gatekeeper, with all his or her rules, “I have rules and my rules these are my rules, and you must, you know, follow the rules,” … I'm an artist I'm like, “Wow, this is cool stuff to write about and express about,” it's really interesting. It really interests me, you know, I want to live a full life of things that are interesting to me. That's why I'm in the studio and I'm able to break stuff down and sample my own stuff and loop stuff. Just make things intense. The way the planet is every day, it's intense.

Fantastic Negrito's latest album, Please Don't Be Dead was released on Blackball Universe on June 15th, 2018. He's hoping to announce some New Zealand tour dates in the near future.