The cover art for Please Don’t Be Dead is a picture of Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz, otherwise known as Fantastic Negrito, recovering from a near-fatal auto collision in 1999. The accident put him in a coma for three weeks, and upon awakening left him with considerable, lasting, nerve damage in one of his hands. This would be bad news for anyone but is especially heartbreaking for a career musician. Around this time Dphrepaulezz was also locked in a contract with Interscope records that wasn’t going anywhere and was feeling stifled and exploited. This in many ways was an era of near-death experiences for the artist: professionally, creatively, and literally. Almost twenty years after this snapshot, Fantastic Negrito has risen like a phoenix from the medical tubes and disheveled sheets of that hospital bed. In 2015 he won the first NPR Tiny Desk Contest, in 2016 he won a Grammy for his first album, The Last Days Of Oakland, and this year he released a record that transubstantiates all of that past suffering into something raw, soulful, and ferociously alive.

Please Don’t Be Dead sits somewhere between rock, soul, and funk and on top of a sturdy foundation of blues and roots. There is a lot of overlap with these genres in general, but the songs flit between distinctive tropes of each. “Plastic Hamburgers,” the album’s opener, kicks the door with its feet firmly planted in rock, sounding like if Lenny Kravitz and Rage against the machine somehow fused into one entity, with gutsy, driving guitar and politically charged lyrics about bringing down the political hegemony. The chorus repeats itself, chant-like, “Let’s break out these chains, let’s burn it down.” The next song, “Bad Guy Necessity,” quickly shifts us into a bluesy ballad with Dphrepaulezz singing with a sardonic twang as guitars warble and whine and an organ harmonizes in the background. The album continues on like this, with every song switching its dominant influence, but never sounding derivative. Every track feels original, lived-in by the people performing them, and, despite their distinctiveness, are made cohesive by an undercurrent of blues that flows warmly through all of them.

As much as this album is a victory lap for Dphrepaulezz, there is a concurrent charge of radical political and social commentary throughout it as well. Keeping with blues tradition, Fantastic Negrito sings and rages for the downtrodden, skewering the institutions that reinforce racism and systemic poverty with anger and a sly sense of humor. “Plastic Hamburgers” is the most brazenly overt example of politically charged rhetoric. “Americans pills will wreck and kill / American pills will wreck and kill / Automatic weapon in a twitching hand / The 50-foot wall of addiction, man / Do you, do you understand?” The song slaps, succeeding as an anthemic cry for change, but is pretty straight-forward as far as socially conscientious rock songs go. I found myself most fascinated by the lyrics and approach in “Transgender Biscuits,” which gives a long list of reasons why someone was fired from a job, most of which pertaining to identity. The vocals are distorted, as if they were sung through a coffee can; a syncopated kick drum staggers along, punctuated by dusty snare claps on the upbeats; chords on a piano are quickly tapped out as Dphrepaulezz sings, “I got fired because I’m a woman / I got fired because I’m black /I got fired because I’m a white man / I got fired because I’m fat / I got fired because I’m an asshole / I got fired because I’m gay / I got fired because I’m a Muslim / I got fired for bein’ late.” It’s a creative flip on the standard blues song, in which the singer talks about how he or she lost their job, by incorporating a varied range of identities which depersonalizes the narrative and makes it more porous, promoting inclusivity in the song and the commentary on oppression that backs it. Dphrepaulezz finds strength in this prospect of coming together. He explicitly offers unity up as an answer to fear in the song “Letter to Fear.” “I got friends, and they got friends too / We will carry you / You keep tryin’ to shut us down/We will carry you.”

Let there be no confusion that this album is an unapologetic celebration of being alive. While Fantastic Negrito sings the blues standards of defeat, loss, and oppression in both the personal and general sphere, Dphrepaulezz is answering the plea of the album’s title with a righteous and fiery indignation. Soulful and world-weary, made jagged in a way only a lifetime of adversity could do, his voice breaks and snarls over the whine of guitar and organ in every song. It is the perfect vehicle for a dangerous passion that gushes from every song like arterial blood. Nothing feels fabricated, every ounce of pain and joy has been wholly earned in equal measure. This is not the sort of joy that comes pristine and wrapped in the glossy veneer of pop-sensibility that we have become used to in the mainstream. It is the kind that wakes up in a hospital bed after spending three weeks in a coma, banged up but alive. It is the kind that exists in 2018, bearing witness to the imbalances of power that keep wide swaths of people down and singing in fierce opposition.

It is impossible to listen to Please Don’t Be Dead and not feel painfully alive yourself, and the album begs you to lean into that pain as an antidote to the terrible alternative of numbness or death. Because as long as we are alive we have the chance to overcome, to come together, and to listen to great music. It’s perhaps summed up best in the refrain of the last song on the album, “Bullshit Anthem,” which skews the blues and roots in favor of a funky romp straight out of the disco era with a slapping bass grove, and Fantastic Negrito singing, “Take that bullshit / Turn it into good shit.”









Author Details Jordan Ranft Author Jordan Ranft is a California Bay Area native. His poetry has appeared in ‘Rust+Moth,’ ‘Midway,’ ‘(b)oink,’ and here. He has worked as an arts/culture and music writer for The East Bay Express, Sacramento News & Review, and Brokeassstuart.com. He’s at a point in his life where a lot of his favorite musicians are also his friends. It is delightful. Follow him on twitter, or don’t.

