{"id":17190,"date":"2025-10-23T09:21:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T09:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/17190\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T09:21:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T09:21:08","slug":"qiensave-makes-their-way-back-to-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/17190\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00bfQiensave? Makes Their Way Back to Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last March, Salinas-based band \u00bfQiensave? <\/a>made quite the impression on audiences at SXSW.\u00a0 It was the band\u2019s first time performing in Texas.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great welcome,\u201d says Jhay Cortez, founder of \u00bfQiensave?, of their busy SXSW week culminating to a packed performance on South Congress at The Continental Club. \u201cPeople have fun then we have fun and we want to come back.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Coming back they are as the band is coming to Houston for their first time and playing our own Continental Club<\/a> on Friday, October 24.\u00a0 The evening will begin with Houston\u2019s own Skarnale<\/a>, Felipe Galvan\u2019s Pachuco Boogie Sound System spinning vinyl to kick off the night followed by music from Dallas-based Cayuga All-Stars<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00bfQiensave? has an explosive live presence where the band mixes traditional cumbia sounds with more modern dance and techno elements along with a reggae vibe creating what they coined \u201cCumbia Urbana.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTexas is great. There\u2019s a different vibe there and I think people really appreciate music in a different way there,\u201d says Cortez who founded the band back home in California with three of his brothers back in 2009. \u201c We are still exploring Texas, it is so big.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u00bfQiensave? does have a great tie to the Lone Star State through their collaboration with Corpus Christi born and based nu-cumbia pioneer El Dusty.<\/a>\u00a0 The band worked with him to create their album released earlier this year, Reanimacion.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reanimacion saw the band doing what they do best, taking sounds from the past and making them new as the album features all covers of traditional songs pushed into a new direction.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard,\u201d says Cortez of shape shifting old songs. \u201cThere\u2019s always traditionalists and people who are very connected to the music and it could be tough sometimes to see it change and evolve. In all human aspects, change is hard,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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This year the band also teamed up with Chuck Prophet<\/a> while their fellow Californian was processing his recovery from cancer for his album Wake The Dead.\u00a0 The album is a beautiful and balanced combination of Prophet\u2019s poetic skills and the bands uplifting, traditional musical sounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Chuck it was a melding of two sounds, he really fell in love with the cumbia sound.\u201d\u00a0 Though on Wake The Dead the band did not provide lyrical content, Cortez says the whole project cemented the band\u2019s original focus on their influence of Americana and folk influences.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re beautiful in the sense that they communicate a lot and it has a lot of deepness in the words,\u201d he says of folk music from all over the world. \u201cThe communication is sometimes really simple but it has a strong message. It\u2019s not meant to showcase the musical knowledge, it\u2019s more to showcase a story so sometimes the chords are a little simpler but the words are a little heavier.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lyrically each member of \u00bfQiensave? writes lyrics and songs. \u201cThat\u2019s what gives us our varied sound,\u201d says Cortez of working with his brothers Mario, William and Ricardo Cortez. \u201cEverybody has their own story to tell and sometimes it\u2019s a different perspective and that\u2019s beautiful.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The band sings and writes songs in Spanish, oftentimes using simple, repetitive phrases meant to immediately hook the audience and though the music makes the listener want to dance, the words are meant to awaken the soul.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I sing in Spanish, it\u2019s an act of rebellion in a way ,\u201d says Cortez. \u201cI could sing in English but I also want people to gravitate towards it and to understand that it\u2019s okay,\u201d he says adding that their use of the Spanish language can serve as a connection for third and fourth generation Latinos to hold onto their native tongue and culture.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The name of the band itself comes from what Cortez describes as a \u201cChicanada\u201d where he misspelled \u201cwho knows\u201d in Spanish, actually spelled \u201cquien sabe.\u201d Cortez describes embracing the mistake as further evidence for the common first generation experience stating,\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m not fully Mexican and I\u2019m not fully American.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The band is currently working on their upcoming album tentatively titled, As\u00ed Las Cosas, due out in Spring 2026.\u00a0 For this album the band again counted on help from giants teaming up with Latin music producer Greg Landau<\/a> and Raul Pacheco from Ozomatli<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Through their new songs, Cortez and his band will continue to build upon the idea that by mixing genres and opening people\u2019s minds through good dance grooves the beauty of diversity can be celebrated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is an interesting time right now with all the politics and all the challenging times,\u201d says Cortez. \u201cBut that\u2019s the beauty of the music. Going to a \u00bfQiensave? show, you\u2019re just able to dance and in a way put that on pause for a second and just enjoy yourself because all that\u2019s going to be there and it\u2019s going to be there all week, every day. When me and my carnales sing we like to bring a little lightheartedness to the week.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00bfQiensave? will perform at 10 p.m Friday, October 24 at The Continental Club, 3700 Main. For more information visit continental club.com<\/a>. $15-25. <\/p>\n

For more information on \u00bfQiensave? visit qiensavemusic.com<\/a><\/p>\n

This article appears in Jan 1 \u2013 Dec 31, 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last March, Salinas-based band \u00bfQiensave? made quite the impression on audiences at SXSW.\u00a0 It was the band\u2019s first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[13480,56,58,57,13481,13482],"class_list":["post-17190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-el-dusty","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-qiensave","tag-the-continental-club"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}