Chuck Prophet is proof you should always stick around for the afterparty.
Prophet was playing a gig at Make-Out Room, in San Francisco, and he stuck around for the venue’s cumbia night. He immediately fell in love with the music.
Prophet says it was one of the pleasurable things that kept him company during the COVID lockdown, while he was recovering from lymphoma.
Eventually, he connected with Northern California cumbia outfit ¿Qiensave?, and after jamming with them at a few shows, Prophet recruited the band to play on his new album, Wake the Dead.
In today’s session, Prophet talks about the immediate connection he had with ¿Qiensave? and how he learned that cumbia has more in common with punk than you might think.
This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod and Will Loftus. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams and our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson.