MEXICO CITY — Rawayana, a band composed of Venezuelan émigrés whose trippy, Caribbean-soaked pop has earned it global acclaim, was riding high.
Late last year the group had just been nominated for a Grammy, been confirmed for this month’s Coachella lineup and was about to release a new album with the beloved Colombian band Bomba Estéreo. And after two years of near nonstop touring around the world, Rawayana was preparing an epic homecoming: celebratory concerts across Venezuela that sold out almost as soon as they were announced.
But in December, days before the tour was to start, the band that has always seen its music as a refuge from Venezuela’s turbulent political landscape was itself embroiled in politics.
Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, whom Rawayana criticized last year after he declared victory in a rigged election, delivered a fiery televised speech in which he lambasted the band and a hit song it had just released, calling it “horrible” and an insult to Venezuelan womanhood.
Venues began disavowing Rawayana, which was forced to cancel its tour.
“Until further notice, this is how we say goodbye to our country,” it wrote on social media.
Band leader Alberto “Beto” Montenegro said he was saddened by Maduro’s attacks, but not surprised. The 36-year-old singer and his bandmates are part of the largest diaspora in the world — among nearly 8 million Venezuelans who have fled dueling political and economic crises over the last decade — and their country’s leaders had long found new ways to disappoint them.
But Venezuelans, they knew, were nothing if not resilient. And so the bandmates picked up their instruments and kept doing what they’ve always done: Look forward, and play songs for far-flung compatriots longing for the sounds of home.
“There are so many ugly things happening in the world,” Montenegro said recently while in Mexico City with Bomba Estéreo frontwoman Li Saumet to promote their new super-group, Astropical. “But we try to stay optimistic and move from love. We hope our music serves to heal.”
The members of Rawayana — Montenegro, Antonio Casas, Andrés Story and Alejandro Abeijón — were still kids when leftist Hugo Chávez won the presidency in 1998 and began nationalizing Venezuela’s industries and consolidating power.
They started by uploading tracks to the internet in college and quickly gained a following. At a time when the country’s political context was increasingly heavy, their reggae and funk-infused sound was light — dominated by danceable songs about weekends at the beach and cheeky covers of reggaeton hits.
“Music for us was like an escape hatch,” said Montenegro. The band invented the name Rawayana, which it imagined as a remote island far from the real world and its problems. Its first album, in 2011, was called “Licencia Para Ser Libre.” Permission to Be Free.
But as the band grew in popularity, and started collaborating with some of the country’s most accomplished musicians, Venezuela was falling apart. In 2013, Chávez died and Maduro took power. The economy plummeted, homicides soared, and Caracas became one of the most dangerous cities in the world.
The capital’s once thriving nightlife, with its packed salsa and meringue clubs, went dark. After several of the band’s members were briefly kidnapped, they decided to leave.
“There was nothing, no opportunities,” said Montenegro. “The only thing we could do was sing in private concerts for wealthy people who could pay for them, or do government gigs. And we didn’t like either of those paths.”
The band members lived between Miami and Mexico City. Their paths out of the country — aided by record companies that helped procure visas — were easier than those of most Venezuelan migrants, who have scattered around the world in search of opportunity and safety.
While abroad, Rawayana kept making music for those back home — going back to Venezuela when possible to play free concerts. But they were also becoming, as Montenegro describes it, “the soundtrack for the diaspora.”
The band traveled constantly, playing lively concerts anywhere Venezuelans had settled, from Barcelona to Omaha, Neb. Venezuelan flags flew at every show.
Migrant life is hard, said Orestes Gómez, a Venezeulan-born percussionist who tours with Rawayana. “People want to come and enjoy like they’re back in Caracas.”
“Whenever they play, their music is impeccable, and the vibe is just incredible,” said César Andrés Rodriguez, a music producer from Venezuela who now lives in Miami. “Everybody is enjoying themselves, dancing. I’ve never seen a bad show.”
The band continues to make sunny, funky pop that offers an escapist path. “You don’t need a visa to be happy,” Montenegro and rapper Apache croon on the song High.
But Rawayana has increasingly touched on political themes. One song on their 2021 album, “Cuando Los Acéfalos Predominan” (When the Headless Predominate), offered a veiled critique the corrupt elite that govern Venezuela, describing private parties where waiters serve “champagne bottles worth five times more than your grandmother’s pension.”
Last year, with discontent over Maduro at an all-time high, Venezeula’s opposition had high hopes that it would be able to best him in the country’s closely watched presidential election.
Evidence collected by independent observers suggests opposition candidate Edmundo González won handily, but election officials declared Maduro the winner. Venezuelans in and outside the country screamed fraud.
“Venezuela has been living a great fraud for many years … an ideological, moral and ethical fraud,” Montenegro told Billboard. “Unfortunately we are not surprised by another electoral fraud, we have already seen it all.”
The attacks from Maduro came a few months later. His target: a hit song Rawayana made with the artist Akapellah called “Veneka.”
The song, which became one of the most listened-to songs last year in Latin America, sought to assign new meaning to the slur “veneco,” which has been used to describe Venezuelan migrants in neighboring countries such as Colombia.
“Where are the venecan women who represent?” the song asks. “Wherever she goes, the whole world knows she’s the boss.”
“We wanted to use it as a symbol of resilience,” Montenegro said. “It was like, ‘I don’t care what you call me. We are the best. Period.’”
But Maduro slammed it. “The women of Venezuela are called Venezuelans with respect and dignity … not venecas!” he said at a rally. The leader called the song “insulting” and alleged the band was “trying to disfigure our identity.”
In the days after Rawayana was forced to cancel the tour, the band members sunk into depression.
Venezuela’s leaders had already devastated their country. “Now they were trying to take advantage of our success to generate news,” Montenegro said.
But there were good things on the horizon. Such as Rawayana’s big night in February, when they became the first Venezuelan act to win a Grammy for best Latin rock or alternative album.
When they accepted the award, Montenegro named a dozen Venezuelan musicians in a rhymed speech and urged his countrymen to keep their heads up.
Then, there was the surprise announcement to fans of an album with Bomba Estéreo.
Last year, Saumet reached out to Rawayana to collaborate on a single. Things flowed so well in the studio they went on record a full album.
Astropical kicked off a tour in Mexico City last month, and will play the Hollywood Bowl Sept. 7.
While they were working, the musicians bonded over the similarities of their countries — the difficulties Venezuelans face now mirror the violence that plagued Colombia in the 1990s.
And after Rawayana found itself attacked by Maduro, Saumet gave Montenegro some advice.
Success, she said, always comes with difficulties. “The bigger the tree, the bigger the shadow.”
But adversity, she said, often paves the way for art.
“The most impactful music comes from difficult situations,” she said.
For Montenegro, what matters most are the band’s listeners. “We have the support of the people,” he said. “So I don’t mind that much.”