An out-of-the-blue email claiming to be from a relative inspired funky blues artist Fantastic Negrito’s acclaimed album White Jesus Black Problems.
It saw him follow his family tree back seven generations to Elizabeth Gallimore, an indentured servant from Scotland, who was charged in Virginia, 1759 with unlawfully cohabitating with a Negro slave.
Fantastic Negrito performs Photo: 2019 Tim Mosenfelder
Also known for his work as activist and urban farmer, Xavier Dphrepaulezz grew up in an orthodox Muslim household in Oakland, California.
A near-fatal car accident in the 1990s derailed his pop music career but he reinvented himself as Fantastic Negrito, going on to win the first NPR Tiny Desk Contest in 2015 and a Grammy for Contemporary Blues Album in 2017.
Through researching his ancestry, he learned his last name was a complete fabrication, he tells Kim Hill.
“My father made up a complete lie about who he was, and he, in fact, had another family he abandoned, and it was very, very traumatic.
“And then I looked at my mother's side, and I found ‘free negros’. That's what it said … during the time of slavery in America that I was a descendant of some free negros. So, I wondered, how did that happen?”
Further digging revealed the remarkable story of his ancestors.
“This of course, was extremely shocking to discover something like this, but as soon as I discovered it, I thought, you know what, these are the people that I want to be related to. It's the most punk rock thing I've ever heard, an interracial couple on a tobacco plantation in Southern Virginia and they live to talk about it.”
He had to re-invent himself after his accident, he says.
“I was driving down the street and the lights went out, basically, I never really remembered what happened because I was in a coma for three weeks, but it was a car accident in Los Angeles.”
He gave up music for a while, he says.
“I think there's a gap there. I did, in fact, start joining some punk bands …but I really quit all of music for a period of time, and I just gave up and sold all my instruments. And I became a farmer, a marijuana farmer.
“And married, settled down. And then it called me again. So I came back, but I've definitely quit this thing before. You know, when I wasn't feeling the inspiration, I don't want to do it if I'm not inspired.”
As well as his music, record label and running an art gallery, he has established Revolution Plantation, an urban farm.
“I think there's nothing more revolutionary than planting your own food, I think it's the path to freedom.”
Fantastic Negrito performs at WOMAD in New Plymouth Sunday 19 March.
