The crowds in San Jose and surrounding cities aren’t as wild as they used to be for Cinco de Mayo, but it remains a strong hold for holiday festivities, which mostly revolve around consuming Mexican beer, margaritas and the finest cuisine our local taquerias have to offer.

El Jardin Tequlia Bar, Santana Row; May 5, noon-11pm, no cover
The bar promises mariachi music by Mariachi Tapatio, salsa by Son de Kali and beats by DJ SS, along with a surprise Latin musical guest. Other holiday events include pi–atas plus food and drink specials.

Univision Festival Cinco de Mayo, Santa Clara County Fairgrounds; May 5, noon-6pm, $10/ kids under 6 free
Radio station Estereo Sol and Univision 14 are hosting a Cinco de Mayo music festival at the fairgrounds. Mexican star Roberto Tapia will headline, with Noel Torres, Nena Guzman, Roberto Junior, Los Canarios Michoacan, Raul y Mexia and El Conjunto Nueva Ola as supporting acts.

Tres Gringos Cabo Cantina, 83 S. Second St., San Jose; Wed-Sat, 7pm-2am, cover varies
The Tres Gringos website celebrates the holiday all week.

Studio 8 Nightclub, 8 S. First St., San Jose; May 3, 9pm-2am, May 4, 9pm-2am
The club brings two up-and-coming Bay Area hip-hop artists for their weekend celebration. Fachento Boss will be performing Friday along with San Jose dance crew Silhouette. On Saturday, the Gemini will be throwing down some tracks including his Bay Area club hit “Gas Pedal.”

PlurPath 2 Cinco de Rager Rave, May 3, 8pm, $5/$10
Ragtag San Jose rave producers SurfaceLights and KDR are coming together to put on the Cinco de Rager in the Alpha Printing warehouse in San Jose.

Court’s Lounge, 2425 S. Bascom Ave., Campbell
Saturday’s enticements include a fiesta and taco bar with drink specials. On Saturday, DJ Wendel spins.

A couple years back Berkeley DJ, True Justice played a show he’d never forget—opening for Biz Markie in San Jose on Cinco de Mayo. He had such a good time he wants to do it all over again. Getting Biz Markie to come play isn’t exactly the easiest thing to, but that was ok, what True Justice really loved was the party atmosphere in San Jose at that Cinco de Mayo show.

“It’s a great party day. This year, Cinco de Mayo is on a Saturday which is going to make it party party party,” True Justice told me over the phone.

With all this partying going on, that doesn’t mean there won’t also be some killer music. True Justice’s spastic turntable wizardry has been wowing Bay Area underground hip hop fans for almost two decades. He’s collaborated with a lot of the greats on mixtapes, as well as showing off his convulsive spinning skills at many a show. Co-headlining with True Justice will be Nump, a crazy, raunchy East Bay rapper who surely won’t disappoint in the “partying” department.

The partying won’t be just beginning in San Jose. By the time they reach us, the party will have been under way for almost a week. They’re calling it “No sleep till Cinco de Mayo” because they’ll be playing four shows along the way at Las Vegas, Riverside, Concord and Nevada City, and they’re promising to not do a whole lot of sleeping in the process. By the time they take the stage at Johnny V’s the crew will either be totally pumped up with hyper-testosterone mania or completely out of their minds and hallucinating from lack of sleep. In other words, it should be good.

Several other great hip hop artists are on the bill including Distant Relatives, the Bayliens, DLabrie and YDMC.

True Justice and Nump play Johnny V’s on May 5th. Show starts at 9:30p. Tickets are $5 before 9:30p and $7 till close.