Interview: Small Talk with Nemegata at ACL Weekend 2

Austin-based Cumbia magicians Nemegata played an enchanting set at the IHG stage this Saturday during ACL. The short and sweet conversation was an insightful look at a promising new band.

Written by Adam Cherian

Photo by Carolyn Parmer

Hot off the release of their third project Voces, the power trio of Nemegata (Víctor-Andrés Cruz, César Valencia, and Fabián Rincón) used their magic mellifluous capabilities and charmed the audience with heavy-hitting bass, whimsical synths, and an ancestral pride that radiated through the audience at their first ACL. Afterglow had the pleasure of sitting down with them and dishing about their experimental music and goals for the future.

Afterglow: All right. Let's start with introductions. Victor, you can start.

Cruz: I am Víctor-Andrés Cruz aka Guámbito.

Rincón: I’m Fabián Rincón, aka Don Fabo.

Valencia: Y yo soy César Valencia.

How did you guys feel about your set earlier today?

Cruz: Great. We're super excited. 

All: Yeah.

Has it been fun just being at ACL for the first time and getting all this new attention, especially with the [Austin] Chronicle shout-out?

Cruz: For sure. It's been super exciting just leading up to ACL with our new album with the Chronicle shout-out and having all the support from our team. That's been like making it super enjoyable and it's easy for us. Yeah, it's been amazing.

I definitely want to talk about Voces, but before we get into that, can you guys give a little bit of rundown of the history of the band and how y'all met?

Cruz: I used to live in New York City. When I was there, I started kind of like, imagining this band — the concept. I had the name, which is the old name of the place where my great grandparents were from Colombia. I recorded two songs on a seven-inch vinyl. I was coming to Austin very often just flying from New York to play with other musicians going on the road. These guys were part of those projects. We would meet here and go touring. That's how we became really close friends — just being on the road hanging out. I really liked Austin, so I decided to move since I was living in Canada [and] Fabien was here already. When I moved here it was a “Hey guys, I have this idea! Let's make this band!” and we just started making it happen.

Is there anything that you find special about [Austin’s] music scene in particular?

Cruz: Yeah. I feel that there's a scene for sure. There's a community, and people are very enthusiastic about live music here. That's what I feel. If you can take advantage of the resources here, I feel like you can make stuff happen, you know? Because it's a city, but it's not such a big city. I feel that it's like the soil is fertile to plant some seeds and have a nice harvest.

From y'all [Rincón and Valencia], anything in particular that you like about the Austin scene compared to other music scenes you've been in?

Valencia: Yeah, I think in Austin what happened is [it’s very hot]. Like it's so hot, that it can be the point of fusion that many other musicians like come through and yeah, I love the Austin music industry [and] what is happening right now after those COVID times and it's doing great. I just want to say thank you and be grateful for that, because that's why now I gotta have a space to put it out. It came from the soul from the roots of Colombia that we are all over the world but we connected with this tribe. That is a really good tribe.

Rincón: I just feel comfortable with Austin vibes here, so I love Austin.

Let's talk about Voces and the making of that record. Were there any particular inspirations for the album that people would be surprised by?

Cruz: Yeah! I think it was a time when we really wanted to experiment further than what we had done before with the first album, which just captured our live sound basically. But [for Voces], we had the space and the time [to do it] because it was right when lockdown was happening. A few months into it, we felt like we were safe enough to get into a room together and work. 

We couldn't do any shows. There was no touring. We just went into Fabián’s apartment and into his studio room, and we just started jamming to ideas, listening, and sharing a lot of different albums — traditional music from Argentina, Haiti, Cape Bird, Cameroon, Peru, Africa in general, and South America. I was exploring new territories with my voice and like we were assembling stuff and César got into synth bass. Just because… we couldn't rehearse at a rehearsal studio didn’t mean we couldn't go play live. We just said let's cook some stuff here, you know, together.

My favorite descriptor that someone wrote about your music was when The Austin Chronicle described it as “Cumbia on Mars,” and I could definitely see that spirit of experimentalism within your music. Is there a specific reason why you really go for that futuristic sound? Because like I understood completely what [they] meant by that.

Cruz: Yeah, I think it comes from like, re-signifying our own roots. I've been studying a lot of traditional music from my childhood and we've all been in the process of exploring,learning, and knowing that music. I don't want to just play traditional music, you know? And we have a different life story. We've migrated here [and] the space, the environment, has influenced our sounds and so it's sort of like projecting our own roots into the future. Basing everything from the roots ourselves. We're very much inspired by things like Afrofuturism, like Abya Yala, which is the original name of the continent from the Guna people and that already makes you look back deep into the roots. 

Yeah, and imagining our future as Latin Americans? [We’re thinking] how do we imagine our own future told by ourselves? Not like this version of the futurism that's been imposed on us, but like, how do we write our own future? How do we see ourselves in the future and that's sort of like where it's coming from.

So, you're around a lot of other amazing artists at ACL right now. Is there a particular artist on the lineup that you guys would like, work with in the future or that you just love?

Cruz: I like Mars Volta. You know, and some people have compared us to them, occasionally. I love Kendrick Lamar; what he's doing is beyond hip-hop. It's like Afrofuturism in my opinion. It's something just rooted in everything from Black music. It's jazz, hip-hop, spoken word — it's everything. It's amazing!

Yeah it’s insane how To Pimp a Butterfly is almost 10-years-old! César, Fabián, what about y’all?

Valencia and Rincón: All the same really!

Cruz: Yeah I was really bummed about Kali Uchis [dropping out of ACL]. She’s Colombian too.

She is partially responsible for this continued boom of Spanish music in the market right now. I could probably pinpoint her as someone in particular that makes it very popular in the U.S. market.

Cruz: What she's doing with the aesthetic videos and stuff, she's drawing from the neighborhoods in Colombia. You know, she's bringing her sound and aesthetics. It's really cool.

Just one more question for y'all. What's the plan for the future?

Cruz: We have an official release show in the works, hopefully by the end of this year. Then, we're planning on touring next year [for] this album. We're really focusing on going [to] Latin America more to connect with those audiences and kind of like go full circle, you know? We’re inspired by the sounds that come from there, particularly for Colombia, and we got transformed here. Now we go back and share the music there.

You can follow Nemegata on Instagram and stream their music on Bandcamp, Spotify, and Apple Music.

This interview has been minimally edited for clarity and length.