On Una Vida, Enrique Chi’s band Making Movies reckons with change, growth and loss

Enrique Chi remembers the first time his band, Making Movies, opened for a national act. At the time, he thought it would be his big break. But it wasn’t.

“I learned a hard lesson: When bands are on tour, the last thing they’re worried about is the local band that’s opening their show—that’s their time to go get dinner, shower or relax,” Chi says. “That was a humbling realization.” So in 2011, when the Kansas City group was tapped to open for renowned Latin rock band Los Lobos at Knuckleheads, Chi says he had already learned to “taper his expectations.” 

From the tour bus, Los Lobos member Steve Berlin heard something—what he thought was just a record playing over the sound system—that caught his attention. He was surprised to find that the unique blend of psychedelic rock and Afro-Caribbean rhythms was coming from the local opening act. By the end of the night, after Making Movies had jammed on Los Lobos’ encore, Berlin extended an offer to produce the KC band’s album.

With no other producers in his phone book, Chi eagerly took Berlin up on his offer. “That night really changed my life,” Chi says.

In the 15 years since, Making Movies has continued to refine its signature sound, weaving poetic lyricism and distorted, reverberant guitar effects with energetic rhythms like cumbia and son cubano, as well as folkloric instruments from Chi’s native Panama, like the mejorana (a hand-crafted five-string instrument akin to a guitar). With a lengthy list of accomplishments, the group has released a plethora of music, been featured on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series and garnered a Latin Grammy nomination.

Late last month, Making Movies released its fifth studio album, Una Vida, following their 2022 release XOPA. On November 7, while on a tour that reaches from Panama to Canada, the psychedelic rock group will celebrate its new record with local fans at the Folly Theater. For the homecoming performance, the band will share the stage with Mariachi Los Reales de Kansas City and local dance troupe El Grupo Folklorico Atotonilco.

Like salsa, a genre born in New York City dance halls that blends Afro-Caribbean rhythms with jazz, Making Movies’ style fuses the traditions of Chi’s homeland with those of his upbringing in the United States. Born in Santiago, Panama, the musician was raised in Kansas City. Although he isn’t Mexican-American, his mother previously lived in Veracruz, and Chi grew up immersed in KC’s Chicano community. 

Una Vida, which translates to “one life,” is a labor of love three years in the making and marks a change—in more than one way—for the group. Two longtime band members—percussionist Juan-Carlos Chaurand and Enrique’s brother Diego Chi—have taken a step back from the group but still contribute prominently in the new album. “We had to make some difficult decisions as a tribe,” Chi says. “What does it mean to move forward? All of these transitions, this growth and change—it really reframed the record.”

That shift opened a new window. For the first time in Making Movies’ history, Chi is credited as a producer on the record. Berlin, however, is still an integral part of the group’s creative process, credited as a producer on “Déjala,” a song that Chi says almost didn’t make it to the finish line. “He’s a spiritual band member,” Chi says of Berlin.

Una Vida also took shape in the wake of Chi’s grandparents’ deaths, prompting several trips to Panama. There, he spent time in his hometown and road-tripped throughout the small Central American country, collaborating with folkloric musicians like percussionist Milagros Blades and Chi’s mejorana teacher José Augusto Broce Bultrón. Both appear on the album. While looking through family photos on his grandfather’s front porch, Chi got the idea for the album’s lead single: a bilingual reimagining of KC musician Kevin Morby’s “This Is a Photograph.”

“It was like closing a chapter of time in Santiago, where my family’s roots on both sides come from—I saw [Panama] and myself in a different light,” Chi says. “It was an awakening.”

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