Mexico City – Rawayana, a band made up of Venezuelan emigrants whose pop trippy and padded with Caribbean has earned international consumption, was on the prime.
At the tip of final 12 months the group had simply been appointed for a Grammy, he was confirmed for Coachella’s vary of this month and was about to publish A new album with the beloved Colombian band Stereo bomb. And after two years of tour virtually with out stopping all around the world, Rawayana was getting ready an epic return dwelling: celebratory live shows all through the Venezuela who exhausted virtually as quickly as they have been introduced.
But in December, days earlier than the beginning of the tour, the band that has all the time seen his music as a refuge from the turbulent political panorama of Venezuela was herself concerned in politics.
The authoritarian chief of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, whom Rawayana criticized final 12 months after declaring the victory in a rigged election, held a fiery tv speech by which he left the band and a profitable track he had simply printed, calling it “horrible” and an insult to Venezuelan femininity.
The locations started to surrender Rawayana, who was compelled to cancel his tour.
Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro
(Matias Delacroix / Associated Press)
“Up to additional discover, that is how we greet our nation,” he wrote on social media.
The chief of the band Alberto “Beto” Montenegro stated he was saddened by the assaults of Maduro, however not shocked. The 36-year-old singer and his bandmates are a part of the most important diaspora within the world-time virtually 8 million Venezuelans who’ve fled by dueling political and financial crises within the final decade-and the leaders of their nation have lengthy discovered new methods to disappoint them.
But the Venezuelans, they knew, have been nothing if not resilient. And so the bandmates collected their instruments and continued to do what they all the time did: don’t look ahead and play songs for distant compatriots who wished the sounds of the home.
“There are so many dangerous issues that occur on this planet,” stated Montenegro lately whereas he was in Mexico City with the Frontwoman Bomba Estéreo Li Saumet to advertise their new super-group, Astropical. “But let’s attempt to keep optimistic and transfer on to like. We hope that our music will assist to heal.”
Members of Rawayana in Hollywood on Thursday 30 January 2025.
(Ringo Call/For de Los)
The members of Rawayana – Montenegro, Antonio Casas, Andrés Story and Alejandro Abeijón – have been nonetheless youngsters when the left Hugo Chávez received the presidency in 1998 and started to nationalize industries and consolidating energy of Venezuela.
They began loading traces on the web in school and rapidly gained a sequel. At a time when the political context of the nation was more and more heavy, their reggae and the infusion sound of funk have been mild, dominated by danceable songs on the weekend on the seaside and brazen covers of reggaeton successes.
“Music for us was like an escape door,” stated Montenegro. The band invented the identify Rawayana, who imagined a distant island away from the true world and its issues. His first album, in 2011, was referred to as “Licia Para Ser Look”. Permit to be free.
But whereas the band grew up in reputation and started to collaborate with a number of the most expert musicians within the nation, Venezuela was falling aside. In 2013, Chávez died and Maduro took energy. The economic system fell, the murders approached and Caracas turned probably the most harmful cities on this planet.
The nightlife as soon as within the capital, with its full sauce and meringue golf equipment, turned darkish. After many members of the band have been briefly kidnapped, they determined to go away.
“There was nothing, no alternative,” stated Montenegro. “The solely factor we might do was singing in non-public live shows for wealthy individuals who might pay for them or make authorities live shows. And we did not like every of those paths.”
The members of the band lived between Miami and Mexico City. Their paths exterior the village – helped by report corporations that contributed to getting visas – have been simpler than these of many of the Venezuelan migrants, who’ve dispersed all around the world searching for alternatives and safety.
Rawayana at Grammy Latini in 2024.
(Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Latin recording)
While overseas, Rawayana continued to make music for individuals who returned dwelling, returning to Venezuela when doable to play free live shows. But they have been additionally turning into, as Montenegro describes it, “the soundtrack for the diaspora”.
The band has always traveled, enjoying energetic live shows wherever the Venezuelans had settled, from Barcelona to Omaha. The Venezuelan flags flew to each present.
The lifetime of migrants is difficult, stated Oreste Gómez, a percussionist of Venezezeulan origin who goes on tour with Rawayana. “People wish to come and have enjoyable as if that they had returned to Caracas.”
“Every time they play, their music is impeccable and the ambiance is solely unbelievable,” stated César Andrés Rodriguez, a Music producer from Venezuela who now lives in Miami. “Everyone is having enjoyable, dancing. I’ve by no means seen a foul present.”
The band continues to make the pop sunny and funky that gives an evasion path. “You do not want a visa to be comfortable”, Montenegro and rapper Apache Croon on the track on the prime.
But Rawayana has more and more touched political themes. A track from their 2021 album, “Cuando los acéfalos preominan” (when the predominated with out head), provided a veiled criticism the corrupt elite that dominated Venezuela, describing the non-public events by which the waiters serve “bottles of champagne for a price of 5 instances greater than the grandmother’s pension”.
The demonstrators present in opposition to the official electoral outcomes that declare that President Nicolás Maduro received the re -election in Caracas, in Venezuela, Monday 29 July 2024, the day after the vote.
(Cristian Hernandez / Associated Press)
Last 12 months, with the discontent on Maduro on the historic tops, the opposition of Venezeula had nice hopes that will have been in a position to enhance the presidential elections fastidiously managed by the nation.
The assessments collected by unbiased observers recommend that the candidate for the opposition Edmundo González has simply received, however the electoral officers declared the winner Maduro. The Venezuelans inside and outdoors the nation shouted a fraud.
“Venezuela has skilled a terrific fraud for a few years … an ideological, ethical and moral fraud,” stated Montenegro Advertising billboard. “Unfortunately we’re not shocked by one other electoral fraud, we’ve got already seen every little thing.”
The demonstrators collide with the police in the course of the occasions in opposition to the official electoral outcomes that declare the re -election of President Nicolas Maduro, the day after the vote in Caracas, in Venezuela, 29 July 2024.
(Matias Delacroix / Associated Press)
Maduro’s assaults arrived a number of months later. His goal: A successful song Rawayana made with the artist Akapellah referred to as “Veneka”.
The track, which turned probably the most listened to songs final 12 months in Latin America, tried to assign a brand new which means to the slur “Veneco”, which was used to explain Venezuelan migrants in neighboring international locations resembling Colombia.
“Where are the Venecan ladies who characterize?” The track asks. “Wherever he goes, the entire world is aware of he’s the boss.”
“We wished to make use of it as a logo of resilience,” stated Montenegro. “It was like ‘I do not care what you name me. We are one of the best time.’
But Maduro slammed him. “The ladies of Venezuela are referred to as Venezuelane with respect and dignity … not Venecas!” He instructed an occasion. The chief referred to as the track “Insulting” and stated that the band was “attempting to disfigure our id”.
In the times following Rawayana compelled to cancel the tour, the members of the band sank in melancholy.
Venezuela leaders had already devastated their nation. “They have been now attempting to reap the benefits of our success to generate information,” stated Montenegro.
But there have been good issues on the horizon. Like the good night of Rawayana in February, once they turned the primary Venezuelan act to win a Grammy for one of the best Latin or different rock album.
When they accepted the prize, Montenegro appointed a dozen Venezuelan musicians in a rhyme speech and urged his compatriots to maintain his head excessive.
Then, there was the shock announcement to the followers of an album with Estéreo bomb.
Last 12 months, Saumet contacted Rawayana to collaborate in a single. Things are incorrect so properly within the studio that they recorded an entire album.
Astropical gave option to a tour in Mexico City final month and can play the Hollywood Bowl September seventh.
As they labored, the musicians have linked themselves to the similarities of their international locations: the difficulties that the Venezuelans face now mirror the violence that troubled Colombia within the 90s.
And after Rawayana discovered herself attacked by Maduro, Saumet gave a recommendation to Montenegro.
Success, he stated, all the time has issue. “The greater the tree, the larger the shadow. “
But adversity, he stated, typically opens the best way for artwork.
“The greatest music of nice affect comes from tough conditions, “he stated.
For Montenegro, what issues most are the band’s listeners. “We have folks help,” he stated. “So I do not thoughts a lot.”
