Decked out in a flamboyant 70s-inspired getup that screamed modern-day Sly Stone, Xavier Dphrepaulezz, better known as Fantastic Negrito, commanded the stage like a man who’s lived a dozen lives and learned the lessons from every one of them. Half an hour before showtime, he told us that the Fantastic Negrito persona is all artifice, a constructed character. Yet on stage, nothing about him felt less than authentic. His soulful vocals, his wild dance moves, and his confessional banter were as genuine as it gets.
The set leaned heavily on tracks from Son of a Broken Man, a record as fearless as his live presence. Backed by a band that oozed Funkadelic energy, he conjured a sound that defied neat categorization, a molten mix of funk, hard rock, soul, and pop that called to mind a modern-day Prince, each song like a bolt of lightning, jolting the audience into ecstatic motion. Fantastic Negrito doesn’t merely perform: he testifies. And at La Cigale, he preached to a congregation ready to dance through the fire.
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