Enrique Javier Chi of Making Movies
When did you first get into music? I cannot remember a time where I wasn’t into music. Before I could really speak, I was in love with the song “The Walk of Life” by the Dire Straits. I would dance around and sing the song long before I was able to speak english. That story is part of the reason we named the band Making Movies after the title of another Dire Straits record.
Who or What inspired you to pursue a career in music? I’m not sure if it was a person that inspired me to pursue a career in music. I had intuitively concluded that this is the only thing I wanted to do with my life. I think that as an immigrant growing up in the midwest, music was my refuge. It made being an outsider an outsider feel not only ok, but maybe being an outsider is cool. Also, Ruben Blades music was like a magic portal back home to Panamá. My family would put on his album Amor y Control and his poetry would transport me––I could smell the sulfur of the city and feel the humidity. That all felt like magic to me and I wanted to devote my life to making that kind of magic. In Kansas City there were very few mentors to guide me into what sustaining a career in music could look like. That is a big part of our activism is creating spaces and opportunities for young people (especially those from immigrant or disenfranchised communities) to connect with folks who can inspire a career in music. We founded a not for profit, Art As Mentorship with that goal in mind. How would you describe the music that you create? It depends on the day and who I’m speaking too, my main answer is that it is real music and with substance, listen for yourself and pull out of it what you need from it. It can also be simply described as rock n’ roll, since the birthplace of rock n’ roll, afro rhythms from the Caribbean formed the foundation for the music. In a way we are just taking rock n’ roll back to its spiritual origins.
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How has your music evolved since you first began playing music? I think that it has deepened and continues to deepen. Music feels like a giant conversation that is being had through time and place, songs from a previous generation, rhythms from our ancestors connect us to a deeper understanding of what it is to be human and be alive. In that music has changed me, I no longer feel like an outsider looking in at the world from a window, but I feel my presence as a tiny part of a giant conversation. There is so much comfort in that.
