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ROOTS RADIO 019: “Deep Breath. Reset. Refresh.” ft. Fantastic Negrito and Hosts Richie Nuñez and Lisa Bonta Sumii
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Roots Radio is an interview series that highlights community members who contribute to the cultural, artistic, musical, and political landscape of Oakland. In episode 19, hosts Richie Nuñez and Lisa Bonta Sumii engage in a conversation with Fantastic Negrito.
When you listen to Fantastic Negrito, you're invited to experience the story of life after destruction. Each song represents a real story of a musician from Oakland who went through the highs of a million-dollar record deal, the lows of a near-fatal car accident that left him in a coma, and now finds himself in the midst of a rebirth that has taken him from the streets of Oakland to the world stage.
The narrative of this man is as crucial as the sound itself because the narrative is the sound. The songs are born from a challenging life, channeled through black roots music with elements of slide guitar, drums, and piano. The music is urgent, desperate, and edgy.
Negrito burst onto the national radar by winning the inaugural NPR Tiny Desk contest in 2015 and has since won Grammys for all three of his albums: The Last Days of Oakland (2017), Please Don't Be Dead (2019), and Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? (2021). The latter album features collaborations with fellow Tiny Desk winner Tank (Tank and the Bangas) and Bay Area legend E-40.
The past few years have been eventful for Negrito. His independent record label, Storefront Records in West Oakland, released his two most recent projects. White Jesus Black Problems (2022) and Grandfather Courage (2023) explore the forbidden love between his seventh-generation grandmother, a white Scottish indentured servant, and his seventh-generation grandfather, an enslaved African man on a Virginia tobacco plantation in the 1750s. White Jesus Black Problems is accompanied by a 45-minute video available to watch on YouTube.
Negrito has also launched The Storefront Market, an open-air community market at Storefront Records. The tenth market recently collaborated with Thrive City at The Chase Center, the home of The Golden State Warriors in San Francisco. This collaboration brought a variety of Bay Area artists and vendors to the city.
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