Fantastic Negrito/Casino Royale/Sa Razza – July 3rd 2026 – Arena in Fiera, Cagliari

Fantastic Negrito is today the most authoritative and innovative voice in contemporary global blues. If it’s true that the artist has lived ten lives, as critics have written, he has learned something from each one, and today the eclectic 50-year-old musician with the unpronounceable name, Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz, is a survivor with a lot to say. He never misses a beat in painting his world with the red, blue, and black of his three souls: funk, blues, and rock’n’roll. The live performance is the cathartic ritual of an artist who has transformed a life of falls and rebirths into a complex and overwhelming sonic architecture.

Fleeing home at twelve, onto the streets of Oakland, and training as a clandestine pianist in the halls of Berkeley, Xavier went through the meteoric rise of a million-dollar contract with Interscope in the 1990s, the commercial failure of his debut, and a tragic car accident in 1999 that left him in a coma, forever threatening his ability to use his hands. After years of silence and withdrawal spent cultivating the land, he later rose again among the sidewalks and subways, creating a project that now acts as an alchemist of ‘Black Roots Music,’ starting from the rural Delta blues and shattering it through the lens of psychedelic funk and the fury of punk rock. His performance is a musical kaleidoscope that doesn’t just reference the past but contaminates it with the expressive urgency of punk rock, from which he inherits the rebellious attitude and straightforward execution, blending it with the harmonic sophistication of Motown soul and the tight rhythmic progressions of contemporary R&B. Each song is a battleground where electric guitar riffs, acidic and distorted, converse with Afrobeat grooves and hints of urban gospel, creating an atmosphere that swings between sacredness and the creative chaos of an underground jam session.

Fantastic Negrito explores the African roots of American music with a modern awareness, incorporating elements of hip-hop storytelling into his vocal phrasing and structures that evoke the experimental rock of the Seventies, without ever losing that ‘blue feeling’ which serves as the emotional glue for the entire performance. His skill lies in transitioning from acoustic delicacy to sonic explosions saturated with distortion, providing a complete overview of how black music has evolved, transforming into a dynamic force that disregards purism in favor of embracing total, overwhelming compositional freedom. Fantastic Negrito’s show is ‘dirty,’ honest, and deeply human, where every note tells the story of someone who has lost everything and returned to the stage to turn pain into a collective resurrection, offering a total compositional freedom that ignores purism to embrace the wildest essence of contemporary black music.

Under the spotlight of VIBES IN BLACK, the Casino Royale will also perform on the occasion of the celebratory reissue of “Sempre più vicini” on double LP, marking the return of a seminal work that redefined Italian music and consecrated the Casino Royale as one of the most visionary and influential bands of their generation. Emerging from the ferment of Milan’s underground scene in the 1990s, they imposed a total aesthetic language. Rooted in the activism of social centers and the streets of a rapidly transforming Milan, the band managed to blend the urgency of metropolitan subculture with an unprecedented sensitivity. The storytelling in their lyrics goes beyond the song form to embrace a literary density akin to the beat generation, transforming human alienation into an author’s manifesto that captured the desires of a youth in search of new roots. The special edition of Sempre più vicini is therefore not just a tribute to a cult album, but a necessary recovery of a pioneering multimedia work, born from the heart of the alternative scene to translate into music, visions, and poetic suggestions that still sound incredibly relevant today.

A grand return to the stage of VIBES IN BLACK also for Sa Razza, absolute pioneers and historic pillars of Sardinian and national rap. The band represents the primordial core of hip-hop produced in Sardinia, a reality capable of uniting the urgency of local issues with the pride of its roots. Born in the ferment of the early 1990s, they left an indelible mark on the Italian scene with an artistic vision that has never accepted compromises, blending the tight metrics of rap with the Sardinian language in a stylistic and sonic amalgamation of extraordinary communicative power. Their story is one of identity and resistance. Starting with their protest rhymes and early successes that brought them national critical attention, the band has evolved while preserving the credibility that only those who actively live the territory can transmit. On stage, Sa Razza unleashes raw and conscious energy, where every track becomes a social mirror, capable of telling the contradictions, struggles, and beauty of an island that refuses to stand by. Between tight rhythms and captivating performances, each live show solidifies the artists as true founding fathers of a movement that has transformed the Sardinian dialect and language into a tool for global expression, proving that identity roots can make even the most modern and international sounds resonate.