His acclaimed 2018 album, 'Please Don't Be Dead', received the Best Contemporary Blues Album trophy at the ceremonies in Los Angeles at the weekend.
Please Don't Be Dead: Deluxe Version, an expanded edition of the award-winning LP, is available now for streaming and download via Cooking Vinyl and Blackball Universe.
"It's even sweeter the second time,"said Fantastic Negrito. "I feel like there's a growing movement in roots music -- people going back to the source -- and it's an honour to be a part of that."
Last week saw the release of the music video for ‘A Boy Named Andrew’ as well as an interview with Esquire about his "forays into fashion, the style icons who made him, and the pieces that still move him."
WATCH 'THE DUFFLER'
WATCH 'PLASTIC HAMBURGERS'
WATCH'A BOY NAMED ANDREW'
What's more, Please Don’t Be Dead: Deluxe Version features previously unreleased acoustic versions of five album highlights including ‘The Duffler’ and the powerful ‘Dark Windows (Acoustic)’, released as a single last September to coincide with the annual National Suicide Prevention Week.
Long hailed for his electrifying live performances, Fantastic Negrito is currently in the midst of an epic world tour, with dates scheduled through the summer. Highlights include much-anticipated visits to South America, Australia, Europe, and the United Kingdom, as well as numerous festival appearances including Black Deer Festival, Kent, in June. For complete details, updates, and ticket information, please visit fantasticnegrito.com/pages/tour.
Fantastic Negrito has spent much of the past two years on the road, including sold out headline shows, stage-stealing festival performances, and a series of North American and European tours supporting his great fan, the late Chris Cornell, as well as Cornell's legendary supergroup Temple of the Dog. 2018 highlights included major market headline shows (such as the Please Don’t Be Dead release event at San Francisco's historic Fillmore), dates supporting Sturgill Simpson, sets at such festivals as Arroyo Seco Weekend, Newport Folk Festival, and AFROPUNK FEST, and a spectacular full band performance and interview on CBS This Morning: Saturday, streaming HERE.
ACCLAIM FOR PLEASE DON’T BE DEAD
'A descendant of ‘What's Going On’, delivered by a resilient Hendrix-style dandy'
Mojo
"... James Brown updated for the Black Lives Matter era"
Uncut
An album that is very special indeed'
Blues & Soul
“…something totally unique and original, making it the blackest, deepest 21st-century blues, you’ll ever hear.”
Hi-Fi Choice
“Genre-mashing modern blues at its very best”
Classic Rock
“…carefully crafted to provoke some much needed conversations”
Wire
“Addressing subjects from addiction and gun crime to censorship and obscene over-consumption, the anger is righteous but leavened with the hope of change.”
Uncut
“…there may be no-one earth who can deliver a line like “I get knocked down / But I keep on fighting” with the sincerity and wisdom of experience as Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz. ‘Please Don’t Be Dead’ is a monument to resilience built on the ashes of missed opportunities and fear.”
Afropunk
"When you've been a small-time drug hustler, experienced a brush with death, a false start as a major label artist, and life as a busker, you're well-positioned to sing the blues - as Fantastic Negrito does on his incendiary, consciousness-raising new album, Please Don't Be Dead."
Entertainment Weekly
"Over a series of heaving, stomping riffs, it's a cranked-up, slow-grinding attack on addiction and consumerism with a chant-along chorus: "Let's break out these chains/Let's burn it down."
New York Times
"…fills the middle ground between modern protest music for the political rally and sweaty, sexed-up baby-making music for the bedroom."
Rolling Stone
