The singer, author, composer and multi-instrumentalist, Fantastic Negrito, could not be satisfied with releasing a new album. Although all of his work continues to denounce social injustice, he had to bang his fist on the table and forcefully reaffirm his rejection of racism and discrimination. On June 3, 2022, he will present an imposing multimedia project, entitled White Jesus, Black Problems. This new disc will be accompanied by a film narrating the epic of his great-great-great-great-grandparents, a mixed couple who braved humiliation and intimidation in the middle of the 18th century. Uplifting and exciting!
Fantastic Negrito made an astonishing discovery while searching the Internet. In 1759, in Virginia, one of the strongholds of European settlers in favor of racial segregation on American territory, a young Scottish woman fell in love with an African slave. This romance was obviously forbidden because blacks and whites were not supposed to date each other under any circumstances. However, the two lovebirds braved the obstacles at the risk of their lives. This forbidden liaison fascinated Fantastic Negrito to the point of designing a short film and a disc entirely devoted to this improbable story which redesigned its own destiny. Descendant of a multicultural family, he therefore decided to do a DNA test to find out more about his true roots. He was amazed by the result: “I am 28% European and I absolutely did not expect this. I have Italian, Norwegian, Cypriot but also Amerindian, Senegalese, Ivorian, Irish, Scottish, English, Congolese, Beninese, Togolese and Nigerian roots! This confirms that exchanges between human beings have always taken place. We are living beings and we need to share. Racism is the invention of a society which understood the economic profit it could derive from segregation. Selling human beings seemed like a good idea from a capitalist point of view in the United States 200 or 300 years ago. That’s why I would like to know the DNA tests of each of us, it would bring us together more”. (Fantastic Negrito – May 2022).
Since appearing on international stages in 2014, Fantastic Negrito has imposed an uncompromising musicality and speech that has earned him three Grammy Awards and unanimous recognition from his followers and followers around the world. Steeped in Soul, Funk, Rock and Afrobeat, this gifted Afro-American troublemaker captivates us and questions us because his civic engagement is ever more relevant and legitimate. His new album, White Jesus, Black Problems, can be perceived as a gratuitous provocation with regard to white Americans but it is not so! “The title of my album is not political in my eyes. It is only the expression of an ancestral reality. If you could have asked my Scottish great-great-great-great-grandmother, she would certainly have told you that this “White Jesus” was causing trouble. Don’t forget that she dared to challenge white supremacy in the 18th century in the southern United States! This alone raises her to the rank of a respectable woman. I am one of his descendants and I am aware that this truth does not please everyone. Anyway, many of us are afraid to face the truth. The truth imposes on you an examination of conscience, imposes on you to be a responsible citizen. If I just say there’s racism and I can’t do anything about it, I’m a jerk! It’s all about perspective. You can very well say: “I get depressed when the sky is gray”. On the contrary, you can say: “These clouds are different from those of yesterday. How can I be inspired by them?”. Another example… When someone says to me: “Fuck you!”. I tell myself that, finally, my interlocutor has a problem. This is not mine. When I hear, still today in the 21st century, people talk about “race”, I tell myself that they have understood nothing, that they have a personal problem to solve. I’m not the racist. I would rather answer: “Let’s go have a drink and let’s talk about it!”. Being racist prohibits you from interacting and sharing with people with whom you could become friends. We must embrace the human potential of this planet. What we feel deeply reveals who we are”. (Fantastic Negrito on the microphone of Joe Farmer)
Having become deeply altruistic, Fantastic Negrito has learned from his mistakes and welcomes them. At 54, he allows himself to denounce what is wrong on this Earth. His existential quest accelerated in recent months when he did this work of memory that his ancestry imposed on him. He did not believe himself to be mixed race, but his distant family origins revealed the multiplicity of his being and shattered the lies on which his genealogy was based.
When he performs at La Cigale in Paris on July 12, 2022, our gaze on this man, shaken by the jolts of time, will certainly be much more understanding and benevolent…
⇒ The website of Fantastic Negrito.