2018 – Cooking Vinyl
Release Date : June 15,
2018
By Phillip Smith;
June 2, 2018
Please
Don’t Be Dead is one of the most exciting albums to be released
this year. I’ve been a fan of Fantastic
Negrito (Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz) since viewing the C-Store Session videos on YouTube
in 2015, and I loved The Last Days of
Oakland album which was released in 2016.
The title of his latest record, Please
Don’t Be Dead, refers to the underlying fear a parent holds for the future of
their children in a world filled with school shootings, opioid addictions, and
homelessness.
The album wonderfully ignites with an infectious guitar
riff backed with a captivating beat on “Plastic Hamburgers”, an anthem about the
need for due change. Fantastic
Negrito has a genuine gift of sparking moments of inward enlightenment in his
songs. With “Bad Guy Necessity”, he sheds
light on the age-old craft of misdirection in a Prince/Beatles kind of
way, and how it’s used by those in power to create an enemy which only they can
eradicate.
A gut-wrenching response to gun violence and mass
shootings is revealed in his “Letter to Fear”.
This beautiful song, delicately steeped in blues and bathed in swirling sounds
of organ is elegantly sung. Funk and
gospel are cleverly woven together in “The Suit That Won’t Come Off”, a song
about feeling isolated from the world. Fantastic
Negrito paints a dire portrait of that place in our minds where we often flee
to in the darkest of times. Then he
sings a song of apology to those he’s offended or wronged while in that place
on a “Cold November Street”.
I dig the hard-hitting hook busting loose on “The
Duffler”, and how it smoothly navigates its way through a sweet, galactic groove.
The album comes to a close in a huge P-Funk-style presence with “Bullshit
Anthem”. The song is slathered in funk
and gushing with attitude. It is a sheer
delight. On the topic of P-Funk, I recently
read that the Godfather of Funk George
Clinton plans to retire in 2019.
Although, it will be most sad to see him depart, I would love to see Fantastic
Negrito pilot the mothership when that time comes. He definitely has what
it takes.
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