Toronto-based, Mexican Mayan-Zapotec-born, Quique Escamilla performed on the Rhythmpourium stage at the 2025 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival on Friday, May 2, 2025.
SWOMP captures these photos from his performance:
Quique Escamilla is a Mexican Mayan-Zapotec, born and raised in the warm, tropical southern lands of the state of Chiapas, Mexico. He started singing Mexican folk songs at the age of four at his family reunions. Today, Quique is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, producer, and an international touring artist based in Toronto, Canada.
He breaks down language barriers through his powerful voice and passionate delivery while fusing traditional Mexican styles of music with modern sounds of rock, reggae, ska, pop, jazz, cumbia, bolero, and a variety of other diverse sounds from Latin American and the Caribbean.
His lyrics carry powerful messages that are inspired by and support various social and political issues such as human rights, immigration reform, global conservation, anti-racism, anti-discrimination, anti-oppression and indigenous rights. 25 years of performing live have seasoned Quique to effortlessly connect with his audiences–either solo or with his band; be it in an intimate house concert setting, a large music festival such as the Montreal Jazz Festival, headline Toronto’s majestic Koerner Hall, or rock the Millenium Park’s main stage in Chicago.
Despite the distance from his homeland, Quique remains strongly attached to his Mexican roots. He is honoured to be in Canada to share with and disseminate among his audiences a flavour of his Mexican culture, heritage and traditions through his music and live impassioned performances. His first full-length record “500 Years of Night” was released in 2014, which won him the World Music Album of the Year at the JUNO Awards 2015. The album also won the World Best Solo Artist of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards 2014.
In most recent years, Quique has had the chance to share reputable stages along with high caliber artists from all diverse genres such as Los Lobos, Ron Sexsmith, Alabama Shakes, Jesse Cook, Serena Ryder, Jim Cuddy (of Blue Rodeo), Michael Franti, Los Texmaniacs, Noura Mint Seymali, Cyril Neville (of the Neville Brothers), etc.
Quique and his band have appeared to perform official showcases at international music conferences such as WOMEX 2016, Folk Alliance International 2015 , 2016, 2018, Mundial Montréal, SXSW.
In 2016, Quique did four European tours, and in 2017 he returned to Europe to do a two-month tour which include performances in seven European countries.
In November 2018, Quique Escamilla headlined his first show at Koerner Hall of the Royal Conservatory Museum in Toronto. He presented Day of the Dead: Heroes, a multi-disciplinary show created and curated by Escamilla himself, that included elements of theatre, dance, story-telling, gastronomy and music.
His second full-length album Encomienda was released in February, 2019. It was nominated for Best Solo World Music Album of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards in 2020.
In September 2021, Quique Escamilla created and directed the first edition of Tlalli, a festival dedicated to honouring and celebrating a multi-millenary-old connection that exists among the wide family of Indigenous Peoples across the Americas: from Guaranís in Brazil, Incas in Perú, Aztecs in México, to Six Nations in Canada and beyond.
Follow him at https://www.quiqueescamilla.com/.