Rawayana portrays in songs what is lived in Venezuela

The musical group protests with a mixture of alternative rock, ska and reggae

Photo: Courtesy

The four members of Rawayana formed this musical group with the sole intention of having fun and showing the chaotic social and political situation that their country, Venezuela, went through when they went to university.

“The group was founded without any intention of protest,” said Andrés Story, drummer and chorusist of the band, from Mexico City, where the members of Rawayana reside. “It was more with the intention of taking a photograph of certain circumstances and more specific situations that Venezuelan society has suffered in the last twenty years.”

At that time – he does some years- Hugo Chávez was in power, and although the current situation with Nicolás Maduro might not be better, the truth is that the four boys in this group have been enough to travel to other parts of Latin America to realize that many places on the continent live the same as your country.

“We went through the same problems but in different cycles,” said Andrés. “This is the result of recognizing our continent and the peoples of our continent.”

The musician refers to “When the cephalos predominate”, the fourth album of the group that edited with the intention of releasing the emotional charge left by their time as students, an era in which the repression of young Venezuelans was atrocious.

This musical project had the intention to premiere alongside a documentary that was under production for a year and a half; However, due to the situation that Venezuela is going through, he was frustrated and his end is still in process.

What does accompany the album, which mixes alternative rock, ska and reggae, is an art installation that was placed in Mexico City – it is also available online – that shows in an abstract way what life is like in some Latin American countries, where there are long lines to get food and where it is faced scarcity.

Rawayana’s speech, however, remains the same as when it was founded: “inviting disconnection in a context in which the lives of students was monopolized by the political, social and economic crisis, and basically our university lives consisted of going to protest against the guard and participating in the demonstrations, because that time was one of the most violent periods, “said Beto Montenegro, voice and guitar of the group.

That was how the adventure of Beto, Andrés, Tony Ca sas and Alejandro Abeijón, all friends since childhood or adolescence. First they were put on the map by a video that went viral, then tours in the region and later concerts on the same stage as figures such as Óscar D’León and Servando y Florentino.

The cherry on the cake was his Latin Grammy nomination in 2017 in the category of Best New Artist; That was a very active year for the band in terms of concerts, which closed with a flourish after their application for the award.

Now they just wait for the health emergency to pass to spin again, something they haven’t done since 2019, when they voluntarily retired to work on “When the Cephalos…”

But now they are ready to take their new music wherever possible, to show the musical photographs, as Andrés describes: “photographs of what we are living not only within Venezuela, but also outside.”