Three-time Grammy winner Fantastic Negrito embarks on ancestral journey and uncovers unlikely love story on most ambitious project to date, White Jesus Black Problems studio album.
Fantastic Negrito’s new album and short film White Jesus Black Problems was inspired by a search into his ancestry where he found that his seventh generation grandmother was a Scottish indentured servant who entered into a common law marriage with an African American enslaved man, his seventh generation grandfather, in open defiance of the racist laws of 1750’s colonial Virginia. Their love story is a healing testament to standing up against inhumane and brutal systems with love as your only weapon. Their perseverance is a lesson in today’s polarized society on the virtues of constant struggle in the face of ignorance, fear, and violence, which is still present in the contemporary embodiments of white supremacy, bigotry, and hatred. It's important to tell the story of how those who suffered much greater indignities and violence than we do in contemporary times were nonetheless able to preserve their humanity through human connection and the determination to love. If they can do it in 1759, we can do it 2022.