Rawayana’s sixth album, ‘\u00bfD\u00f3nde Es El After?,’ is a vibrant show of Venezuelan pride amid conflict \u2014 with a prescient message from the country’s late intellectual Arturo Uslar Pietri.<\/b>
\nAll eyes are on Venezuela this week, following the U.S. raid in Caracas that seized President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro on Saturday.
The South American leader and his wife, Cilia Flores, have a lengthy trial ahead after pleading not guilty to \u201cnarco-terrorism conspiracy\u201d charges; their next court appearance is scheduled for March 17. In Maduro\u2019s stead, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez has been sworn in as the country\u2019s acting president; on Thursday the government announced that it would begin to release political prisoners held during Maduro\u2019s tenure.
Originating in Caracas, the Grammy-winning band Rawayana first formed in 2007, during an era of political and economic upheaval under Maduro\u2019s predecessor, the late President Hugo Chavez. Now, as the future of Venezuela and its 30 million citizens is clouded in uncertainty, the timing of the band\u2019s latest release feels strangely fated.
On Jan. 1, the band dropped its patriotic sixth studio album, \u201c\u00bfD\u00f3nde Es El After?\u201d \u2014 which features an all-star cast of fellow countrypeople, such as Elena Rose, Servando & Florentino, Mazzarri and Joaquina.
Conceptually, the new LP is rooted in Rawayana\u2019s vision of Venezuela as a dreamlike space filled with joy, poetry and memory \u2014 as opposed to the concrete dystopia that foreigners have pieced together from foreboding headlines in international media.
\u201cAfter so many years running toward the future, I understood that the real after isn\u2019t ahead or behind: it\u2019s here, in the present, in the instant where music, body and consciousness meet,\u201d said Beto Montenegro, Rawayana\u2019s lead vocalist, in a statement.
\u201cThis album celebrates that now,\u201d Montenegro added. \u201cIt leaves nostalgia behind to embrace the pleasure of existing, of creating, of feeling. It\u2019s an invitation to look around and recognize ourselves. The after is no longer being sought. It\u2019s being felt. And we\u2019re all invited.\u201d
Its opening track, \u201cSi Te Pica Es Porque Eres T\u00fa,\u201d already seems to have riled up fans in the YouTube comments. Some quickly clocked the parallels in Rawayana\u2019s lyrics to the events that occurred Saturday. \u201cUn feliz a\u00f1o te desea Rawa, y que por fin los hijue \u2014 ya se vayan,\u201d wrote one user. \u201cRawa wishes you a happy new year, and may those sons of b\u2014 finally leave.\u201d
This would not be the first time that Rawayana has evoked a strong public response from its music. In 2024, the group, along with featured artist Akapellah, received criticism from Maduro himself for the song \u201cVeneka,\u201d in which the artists sought to reclaim an otherwise derogatory term for Venezuelan people.
\u201cThe majority of us are the greatest. We are people who lead, everything beautiful that \u2018Veneka\u2019 expresses, and more than that!\u201d said Montenegro in a 2025 Times interview. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to misconstrue it, like they have with other realities, which I try to ignore.\u201d
Rawayana\u2019s \u201c\u00bfD\u00f3nde Es El After?\u201d is indeed a political record, but not the sobering kind. Some songs, like the lovestruck bachata-EDM number \u201cPlaya Pantaleta,\u201d or the flirty pop ballad \u201cComo de Sol a Sol\u201d with Grupo Frontera and Car\u00edn Le\u00f3n, make for an upbeat after-party. Rawayana sustains its signature tropical-funk levity well throughout the record, tapping into the vibrant history of Caribbean music.
Yet one captivating political element presents itself on the album cover, which highlights the phone number +1 (414) 261-2692. When dialed, one is directed to a 1996 interview of Arturo Uslar Pietri, a Venezuelan intellectual, historian and politician long heralded as the nation\u2019s conscience.
In the voice memo, which appears to be an audio clip shared by the Uslar Pietri foundation, the late scholar critiques Venezuela\u2019s dependency on oil \u2014 which has been a focal point for President Trump, who has recently asserted U.S. control of Venezuelan reserves.
\u201cWe don\u2019t know how to put our house in order because we have to undertake a gigantic task as great as independence itself,\u201d said Uslar Pietri, \u201cwhich is to reduce the oil state, that monster that devoured the country, and create a space for a nation to emerge, to become the nation we failed to create with abundance.
\u201cVenezuela failed, the men who led Venezuela during the oil boom failed,\u201d the voice of Uslar Pietri continued. \u201cVenezuela should be the envy of Latin America.\u201d
In a 1995 interview with The Times, the scholar summarized the history of Venezuela in nine words: \u201cColumbus discovered it. Bol\u00edvar liberated it. Oil rotted it.\u201d
Before his death in 2001, Uslar Pietri was a member of a civilian government that was overthrown by Venezuela\u2019s military in 1945. He went into exile in New York City, where he continued writing and taught classes at Columbia University. Once Venezuela reestablished democracy in 1958, he returned to his homeland and unsuccessfully ran for president in 1968 under a small independent party. Uslar Pietri eventually distanced himself from the political realm in 1973 to turn his focus to writing.
In later years, Uslar Pietri grew wary of President Chavez \u2014 Maduro\u2019s mentor \u2014 and regarded the left-wing Venezuelan leader as a authoritarian ruler, \u201ca man with a messianic view of himself.\u201d
Uslar Pietri is not the only prominent Venezuelan figure mentioned in the new Rawayana album. The entire track titled \u201cEl After Del After\u201d is the recording of a 1973 speech by Renny Ottolina, a Venezuelan entertainer and broadcaster. He died mysteriously in a 1978 plane crash, while campaigning for presidency under his own political party.
\u201cIt\u2019s utter foolishness to hold onto resentment in your heart because space is space, and if it\u2019s filled with resentment, there\u2019s no room in that space for love,\u201d said Ottolina in the audio \u2014 a clip from the final episode of his program, \u201cEl Show de Renny.\u201d
\u201cNo group has a monopoly on truth,\u201d stated Ottolina. \u201cWhen you choose one group, you easily lose the truth that other groups might possess.\u201d
The ballad that follows is \u201cTonada por Ella,\u201d which breaks into a traditional Venezuelan folk song, in the style of artist-composer Sim\u00f3n D\u00edaz\u2019s \u201cTonada de Luna Llena.\u201d In the song, Rawywana\u2019s Montenegro voices endless adoration for the country\u2019s vast landscapes \u2014 desperate with hope for its renewal. The song was also composed by Servando Primera, son of Al\u00ed Primera, a prominent left-wing artist and political activist known for condemning exploitation and repression in his music.
Now that Venezuela has a chance at a new future, Rawayana\u2019s album poses a pressing existential question, not just for Venezuelans, but for the whole international community to consider: When change comes, what can we do to move forward?
And . where are the afters?<\/p>\n