Artist Danny Ocean explained Wednesday at a Billboard forum that through his music he engages in “a direct conversation with Venezuela”, something that has helped him connect with his country after emigrating to the United States, which “was a big impact on my life”.
Ocean starred in the tenth edition of the panel that recognizes the most “iconic” voices in Latin music, in collaboration with Sony Music Publishing, as part of Billboard’s Latin Music Week in Miami Beach.
Billboard’s director of Latin content, Leila Cobo, moderated the interview with Ocean, who was chosen for the “power of his songs to transform society” at a complicated time for his compatriots.
“We artists are very aware of what we are going through,” he said about the political situation in his country, which is why he affirmed that Venezuelan musicians in exile have wanted to “put Venezuela in its place” and speak directly to it through their songs.
“I see Venezuela as a woman, as if it were a love,” Ocean related about his relationship with his country in his compositions, with which he establishes “a direct conversation” with her.
In his songs, the artist has used his voice to combine all his experiences as an immigrant with “the feeling I have about it”.
Danny Ocean and his migration to the United States
Emigrating to Miami, United States, made him “question many things” and ask himself: “How are we going to make Venezuela maintain this boom as in other countries?
“I don’t see it as a political manifesto,” Ocean said of his songs about Venezuela, “but as a conversation,” he emphasized.
The Venezuelan diaspora in Miami helped him become a collaborative composer, with compatriot artists who had never bonded before and with whom he found a new family in the United States, he said.
In 2023 Ocean commemorated his ‘Caracas in 2000’ along with Elena Rose, in a song that made him nostalgic as he remembered “all the things that were happening” when he still resided there.
“When you start grouping people who have the same accent as you, have the same words, have the same code,” the connection is unquestionable, he explained, because “in the studio communication is very important.”
Still in Venezuela, Ocean wrote the song that opened the doors to the world and that almost ten years later is still being danced to at every party: ‘Me rehúso’ (2016).
The composer expressed his desire to return one day to his country and, as one of his most recent songs, ‘Imagínate’, together with Colombian singer Kapo, says, ‘when I can return, I would like to take you to Los Roques’, reported Agencia EFE.
Find out more at ‘QueOnnda.com’.
