Fantastic Negrito - Please Don't Be Dead

There is desperation and urgency in Fantastic Negrito's new album "Please Don't Be Dead" which follows 2016's Grammy Award-winning "The Last Days Of Oakland."

Fantastic Negrito is truly an artist for these times, a multi-talented, genre-agnostic original whose life and work embody the struggle, energy, truth and creativity of black music. Negrito was raised in an orthodox Muslim household, the eighth of 14 children of a deeply religious Somali-Caribbean immigrant. The family moved from western Massachusetts to Oakland, CA, when Negrito was just 12 years old, his new hometown's vibrant black community providing a massive culture shock after what was an extremely conservative childhood.

In his teens, Negrito ran the streets of Oakland, before finding music and eventually signing with Prince's management. After a slow recovery from a car crash that left him in a coma, he undertook several different musical alter egos, but in the end, he walked away from music - only to re-emerge years later as Fantastic Negrito.

In 2015, he entered and won NPR's inaugural Tiny Desk Concert contest, triumphing over 7,000 other entrants. In 2016, he self-produced and self-released the debut Fantastic Negrito album," The Last Days Of Oakland", which scaled unimaginable heights, eventually going on to earn the aforementioned Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album.