Chuck Prophet & His Cumbia Shoes ft members of ¿Qiensave?

¿Qiensave? is a Cumbia Urbana group from Salinas California with roots stretching back to Michoacán, Mexico. They create high energy dance music that has fortunately blessed them with the opportunity to travel throughout California, Arizona, Mexico, and Colombia.

When a stage four lymphoma diagnosis forced him off the road and into the hospital, Chuck Prophet didnʼt know if heʼd live long enough to see the end of the year, let alone get back on tour. “I was going through a tunnel,” he recalls. “It was dark. But I had music: music to play, music to listen to, music to get me out of my head. Music was my savior.” That much is plain to hear on Wake The Dead, Prophetʼs extraordinary new album. Recorded with band of brothers ¿Qiensave?, the collection explores the world of Cumbia music, which consumed and comforted Prophet during his illness and subsequent recovery. The songs are intoxicatingly rhythmic, all but demanding you move your body, with arrangements that blur the lines between tradition and innovation. There are flashes of rock and roll, punk, surf, and soul, all filtered through the streets of San Francisco and wrapped up in the rich legacy of a genre that traces its roots back to the jungles of South America. Captured live in the studio, Wake The Dead resumes Prophetʼs streak of more than a dozen critically acclaimed solo albums stretching all the way back to 1990, when the California native first shifted focus from pioneering neo-psych band Green on Red to working under his own name. Since then, Prophet—whoʼs now in full remission—has earned raves everywhere from Rolling Stone to NPR, landed songs in a slew of films and television shows, and seen his work covered by Bruce Springsteen, Solomon Burke, and Heart, among others.