Twenty years after she dropped her debut album as a twentysomething moonlighting from her day job at Goldman Sachs, Houston singer Karina Nistal is throwing herself a Halloween-night birthday party for the record. The free celebration lands on Oct. 31 at 8 p.m. at J-Bar-M Barbecue, and it doubles as a costume contest with a $500 prize on the line.
Nistal plans to perform her 2006 debut album Nistyle in full with her five-piece band, according to the Houston Chronicle. The Houston-born-and-bred vocalist has said she still thinks Nistyle jams, and that she remembers writing it and everything she was experiencing at the time, per the same report. Back then, she was grinding through a day job at Goldman Sachs while making the record at night — a hustle that eventually paid off in a local scene that barely resembles today's.
A Debut Rooted in Houston's Club Underground
Nistyle grew out of Nistal's time performing as Diva Karina, trading vocal riffs with Houston DJ collective Tha Rebel Crew, the Chronicle reports. The album was produced by Joe Belmarez, who founded Tha Rebel Crew and released Nistyle on his Starlight Beats and Breaks label — a connection also noted by Houston Press, which reported back in 2006 that Rebel Crew's Joe B produced Nistal's debut CD. The record paired bilingual lyrics and rhymes over Belmarez's beats, blending reggaeton and electronic music into what Nistal calls ReggaeTron — a sound she was cooking up, per the Chronicle's account, before Bad Bunny was even out of his pre-teens.
The album also marked early collaborations with musicians who would go on to bigger things. Nistal worked with guitarist Mark Speer, who later formed the Grammy-nominated trio Khruangbin, and with trumpeter Jon Durbin, who became a member of Gulf Coast soul band The Suffers, the Chronicle notes. Those credits have become part of the lore around Nistyle as Houston's music scene has grown around the artists who once passed through it.
From Military Bases to Local Honors
In the years since Nistyle, Nistal and Rebel Crew spent three weeks touring U.S. military installations in the Middle East in an Armed Forces-sponsored run, according to the Chronicle's reporting. She has also attended the Latin Billboard Music Awards and multiple Latin music conferences, and has won a handful of Houston Press Music Awards along the way. Her own website adds further detail, describing her as a bilingual singer and songwriter with seven albums and 25 years of international performing experience who has toured with Armed Forces Entertainment, performing on military bases throughout the Middle East. That same site notes she was formerly based in Los Angeles and now resides in Houston.
Nistal describes her catalog as genre-agnostic, fusing hip-hop, retro, breakbeat, pop, alternative, dancehall, drum-and-bass, house and even Latin jazz, according to her website. These days she releases inspirational, funky music on her own label, L.O.V.E. Records, and told Voyage Houston Magazine that she continues to write and record while managing her band, the KNQRS. Last month, she put out the reggaeton-R&B single Sin Ti, which is now available on all streaming platforms, the Chronicle reports.
Singles Over Albums, For Now
Nistal told the Chronicle that releasing singles is simpler to market than a full album, though she may work toward another full-length down the road. She's also said her musical themes and expression have matured over the years. Reflecting on Nistyle two decades later, she said the album led to many experiences and that she wanted to reminisce about it — a sentiment that doubles as the whole premise behind Halloween night's show.
The anniversary set is squarely aimed at what Nistal calls grown-folks dance music for her aging club-kid peers, the Chronicle reports. She's said the young people she sees now are more tame and entertain themselves differently than the crowds she used to perform for, even as she keeps encouraging younger fans to get out on the dance floor. Whether that crowd shows up in costume for the $500 prize remains to be seen, but the party is free to attend either way.
