Fantastic Negrito is the incarnation of a musician who is reborn after going through a lot of awful shit. In fact, the name Fantastic Negrito represents his third rebirth, literally coming back from death this time. The narrative on this man is as important as the sound, because the narrative is the sound. Songs born from a long hard life channeled through black roots music. Slide guitar, drums, piano. Urgent, desperate, edgy. Fantastic Negrito is the story of a man who struggled to “make it”, who “got it”, who lost it all, and somehow managed to find his way back. Returning to music in 2014 by playing on the streets of Oakland, Fantastic Negrito won the inaugural NPR Tiny Desk contest. In 2016 he released his debut full length album, The Last Days of Oakland, which went on to win a Grammy in 2017 for Best Contemporary Blues Album. And this year he won his second Grammy in the same category, for his critically acclaimed new release Please Don't Be Dead. His third album Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? will be released in the summer of 2020.

Langhorne Slim didn't write a song for more than a year. A battle with clinical anxiety disorder and prescription drug abuse, which came to a head in 2019, had dimmed the light within. The man who once seemed to ooze spontaneity was now creatively adrift, stumbling along in the fog. In December, he entered a program and, for the first time in a long time, a path toward healing began to emerge. He began to see that inner peace was possible, even with the world outside raging. A few months later, in February, a tornado came and decimated East Nashville, his adopted hometown. Covid-19 took root just days later, changing lives forever. In the early days of his recovery, a different reality was beginning to take shape, both within and without. New worlds were being born; old worlds were dying. Knowing he was struggling to write songs and make sense of it all, Slim was finally able to flesh out a throwaway ditty one afternoon. His close friend Mike then suggested he try penning a song a day. Slim didn't like the idea, but he gave it a shot. To his surprise, the songs came. In a flurry of stream-of-consciousness writing, the new tunes tumbled out, one after another, like little starbursts of joy, gifts from the gods you might say. Slim was tuning out the noise and finding beauty in the madness of a world coming undone. Over the course of a couple of months from March to May, Slim penned more than twenty that were certified keepers. Out of this bumper crop came the songs that make up his new album, Strawberry Mansion, which is being released this winter on Dualtone Records. "I wasn't sitting on the songs and I wasn't overthinking them," Slim says of the writing process of those months. "Something cracked open with the slowing down and the stillness of quarantine. After finishing a song, whether he liked the tune or not, he'd call Mike, a videographer, and they'd record it and post it to Instagram. It was a form of therapy, he now realizes. "There was nothing precious about the process and it was a bonding thing between me and Mike as much as anything else," Slim says. "It also gave me a release and maybe some potential form of healing, and was an opportunity to not always listen to the shitty thoughts in my head. I wasn't ever thinking that I was writing songs for a new record." Prior to this creative outburst, Slim's anxiety had grown so acute there were times when he actually feared picking up his guitar and trying to write. With the help of therapy and friends, he was now learning to confront his demons rather than run from them. So, in the midst of a panic attack one day, he picked up his guitar and the song "Panic Attack" was born. It's a raw, off-the-cuff number that rises above the dark subject matter with spirit, irony and humor. "I called a healthcare professional/ Wanna speak to someone confidentially/ Don't know just how I'm feelin'/ But I'm feelin' feelings exponentially," he sings. Album-opener "Mighty Soul" details a world beset by Biblical-grade plagues (coronavirus, the Nashville tornado) and government malfunction. It ultimately calls for healing through community and the recognition that we can all make a difference. It functions as the album's spiritual center, a secular gospel number for all mankind. "Morning Prayer" is inspired by the songwriter's effort to pray for the first time in his life. "It's not in the key of any one religion," Slim says of the number. "For this, I'm grateful that my guitar was unknowingly yet appropriately out of tune. It's a song to help me practice compassion, surrender, connection to nature, the spirits and beyond." The second part of "Morning Prayer" is one of the most affecting moments on Strawberry Mansion, with the singer reaching out and offering prayers for his loved ones who are struggling, for all of humanity, really. "For my friends who suffer/ For my mother, father and brother/ For a world down on its knees/ I pray for thee," he sings with great poignancy. The road to Strawberry Mansion, which was recorded at Daylight Sound in Nashville with longtime compadres Paul DeFigilia (Avett Brothers) and Mat Davidson (Twain), began in 2019 with Slim's decision to get sober. Even though the singer-songwriter kicked alcohol years ago, the insidious monster of addiction had crept back into his life in different guises. The last straw came during a road trip with a friend, who, at the end of the journey, let it be known that the man he knew and loved was no longer recognizable. So Slim called his manager and loved ones and soon checked into a program. That experience and his ongoing recovery program have given him a framework for grappling with the personal demons that have always skulked in the shadows, and helped him find light in the void. "It's important for me to talk honestly about these things, because I feel it gives me strength, and it might help others along the way." he says. Strawberry Mansion is the singer-songwriter's seventh full-length album. He released his first record, Electric Love Letter, back in 2004. Since then he has graced the stages of Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Newport Folk Festival, and the Conan O'Brien show, winning fans over with his heart-on-a-sleeve sincerity and rousing live shows. Born Sean Scolnick in 1980, Slim took part of his artistic moniker from his hometown of Langhorne, Pennsylvania, a place he's still very much connected to despite making his home in Nashville. Since the advent of Covid-19, he has been traveling back to PA once a month to see his mother and grandmother, and, like many Americans, finding strength in his origins and family bonds. The title Strawberry Mansion refers to the neighborhood in Philadelphia where both of his grandfathers grew up, a place he calls "dirty but sweet, tough but full of love, where giants roamed the earth and had names like Whistle and Curly." That idea of a mythical wonderland informs the new album from head to toe. Strawberry Mansion is not so much about nostalgia for the past as it is about the possibility of better days ahead in this world. These are songs that remind us we're all part of a collective "Mighty Soul," united in one journey, just like the characters in that old Philly neighborhood. It's a life-affirming album for these times.

aloha, the latest album from Son Little, the musical nom de plume of LA’s Aaron Earl Livingston, is available now. As previewed with the release of the invisible EP and early single, “hey rose,” which The New York Times described as comprising “bluesy distorted guitar chords, a hint of Latin rhythm and perhaps a distant echo of the Zombies’ 'Time of the Season’,” aloha blends classic soul and old-school R&B into a timeless swirl fueled by gritty instrumental virtuosity and raw, raspy vocals. Recorded at Paris’s iconic Studios Ferber with producer Renaud Letang (Feist, Manu Chao), aloha is Little’s first album to be recorded with an outside producer. The result is his boldest, most self-assured statement yet. It’s an ambitious work of vision and reflection, and an ecstatic testament to the freedom that comes from trusting the currents of life to carry you where you belong. In order to create aloha, Little began writing and assembling album demos in Petaluma, California. However, after his hard drive fried and he lost nearly a dozen detailed demos, he was forced to begin with a blank slate, leading him to write aloha in only eight days at a tiny house and its adjacent barn. While Little plays nearly every instrument on the album himself, he put his songs in the hands of an outside producer for the first time here. The entire project was an exercise in letting go, in ceding control, in surrendering to fate. Recognizing the power of our own self-destructive tendencies is a recurring theme on aloha. Little mourns the suicide of a beloved uncle on “suffer,” using addiction and mental illness as a lens to explore forgiveness and empathy, laments the rapidly deteriorating world his two children are set to inherit on “o clever one,” and meditates on the dangers of succumbing to passion at the expense of reason on “belladonna.” It would be easy to feel helpless in the face of such inexorable forces, to feel as if we are prisoners of fate rather than masters of our own destiny, but Little instead finds peace in perseverance on the album. “Hallelujah,” he sings on the gorgeous “neve give up,” “though I’m battered and blue / feel like I’m born to lose…Never will I give up.” 

It is a potent reminder that letting go doesn’t mean giving in; in fact, quite the opposite. Letting go can be an act of defiance, of growth, of empowerment. Letting go requires a leap of faith, and, in Son Little’s case, that faith has been richly rewarded. Whether that means this album represents the end of one chapter or the beginning of the next is impossible to know just yet, but in either case, there’s really only one thing to say: aloha.

Patrick Roche is an award-winning poet and performer from New Jersey. Videos of Patrick’s work have amassed over 7.5 million views on YouTube, making him one of the most popular spoken word poets. He is the author of An Exercise in Necromancy (Bowery Poetry/The Operating System, 2017). Patrick has competed or been featured at multiple national and international competitions and festivals, including placing 3rd in the world at the 2016 Individual World Poetry Slam, 2nd  at the 2017 Capturing Fire national queer slam, 9th at the 2017 National Poetry Slam as part of the Bowery Slam Team, and 3rd at the 2014 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI, the national collegiate slam) as part of Princeton University’s team. Patrick serves nationally as an ambassador for the JED Foundation, promoting mental and emotional health, suicide prevention, and substance abuse awareness. He has shared stages with Darryl “DMC” McDaniels of RUN DMC, Pitch Perfect star Brittany Snow, Everybody Hates Chris and The Walking Dead star Tyler James Williams, and Olympic Gold Medalist Chamique Holdsclaw, among others. Patrick’s work has appeared in or been published by Button Poetry, UpWorthy, Buzzfeed, The Huffington Post, MSN, Beech Street Review, Gal Pals Present, Freezeray Press, Voicemail Poems, and more. His work explores mental health, grief, sexuality, body image, disordered eating, family, memory, love, joy, pop culture, and everything in between. Patrick is a 2014 graduate of Princeton University, where he studied Classics (specifically Latin and Greek poetry) and Education.

Tristan Miller is an actor, comedian, podcaster, mental health advocate, and writer. As an actor, Tristan has recently starred in Dominoes, Dir. H. Hammouda and The Ghost and The Writer, Dir. Christina Tucker. As a comedian, Tristan is currently touring an hour of comedy called, Manic Impressive as well as performing regularly in New York City. As a writer, Tristan has been featured in The Good Men Project and Stigma Fighters; as well as having written several sketches and a pilot available upon request. Tristan hosts, edits, and produces two podcasts: Positive and Negative and The Amateur Detective Club. Comedian Gary Gulman calls him, “Ahead of most comedians his age,” Myq Kaplan says “A supremely kind, creative and highly motivated,” and his older sister calls him “An idiot man-child with no sense of survival skills. Why did you bring him on this camping trip, mom?”