Interview w/ Weed420
By Nick Caceres
Published 03/30/2025
A mini branch is currently developing in Venezuela, already acclaimed for the Caracas influence on Latin Rap, with Tropical Sadness, a curation of like-minded artists, some from out of town in Mexico and Argentina, dappling in Plunderphonics, Synth, Sound Collage and Cloud Rap. However, Tropical Sadness will likely ring a bell through hosting the visuals of Weed420.
Whether it’s their lush mixtape, “Malandreo Conceptual” or their valentines day gift “Amor de Encava,” Weed420 is a collective of college-aged musicians in Distrito Capital, Caracas. Formed in 2021, they would tastefully forge the spiritually emancipated Latin Electronic popularized by Elysia Crampton and fellow Venezuelan, Arca, into a hot spring of nostalgia, complete with humor and a smorgasbord of sound effects and vocal tags. The group has hopes of a footing in their homeland, without resorting to immigrating into other scenes with the possibility of cultivating a more Avant-Garde identity in the current artistic landscape there.
The following interview took place over email during the latter half of March where we discussed the latest drop, “Amor de Encava,” along with the landscape in Venezuela. This marks the first latin artist interview in the series with hopefully more to come from this world sitting just under North America.
Gato (left), Alvaro (back), Juan (front) seated in the same bus where the album cover for "Amor de Encava" was shot.
Photo courtesy of Weed420
Nick: Hey guys. How’s it going?
Alvaro: We’re working on it (the questions), we’ve been really busy in our personal lives with Uni or work or both or nothing at all; this has been one of the few days we could be on a call together and talk about everything that’s going on (Future Nick: To clarify, I was not in this call).
Glitch: Soy gato
Sami: Pochi
Gato: Soy glitch (yuh)
Nick: I guess to start, just like your mixtape last year, “Amor de Encava” has been absolutely murdering it in the Rate Your Music charts for the best albums of 2025. As I’m typing this, it is sitting in the top 10 (Future Nick: It’s now at 13 but that’s still extremely high) with most of the tracks flying over a 4.0. Better yet, the album is already bolded. This seems like a big break for you guys so I’d like to know your reactions to it?
Glitch: I think the more surprising fact is that it’s stayed for so long in the top 10 in RYM, because the big surprise was when we first released “Malandreo Conceptual” and it got such great ratings and overall reception; a big amount of people have gotten to know about us through RYM.
Alvaro: we used RYM as a way to promote ourselves because there isn't much of a platform for more of an Avant-Garde type of music in Venezuela and “Malandreo Conceptual” charting for so long really made us realize it really worked to connect us with people in other places. Overall we were more happy than surprised with the reception.
Nick: In regards to the album itself, there appears to be a lot of moving parts, whether it’s Field Recordings, samples of older Latin songs or dense backdrops of Latin Electronics and Reggaeton, what types of philosophy and emotions are at play, fueling these compositions?
Gato: I think it’s an exploration of the experiences and sounds in the collective consciousness of the people in Venezuela, because we have been hearing all of these influences and various sounds since we were kids, they are ingrained into our brains and influence the way we perceive and create music. It’s kind of the filter that’s created for your ears designated by the sounds you grew up hearing.
Sami: Part of what Weed420 does is materialize things that were already going on within our heads, in a way we are making ideas that are consequences of our feelings, and these musical fusions come from the catharsis of experiences that produce these ideas; there’s times where a song that keeps you company falls short, that’s when Weed420 comes in.
Swan: it all comes from pain, coming from for example losing a family member, albeit it not being physically but due to them not being in the country anymore, which produces a barrage of feelings ranging from anger to sadness. These feelings also produce dreams where you can see the people that used to be with you. It’s like you used to be okay but you start repressing these feelings, which might happen unconsciously or due to not even having enough time to process the situations happening to you.
Alvaro: In addition to what Swan said, one of the comments I loved the most regarding the album was that “Amor de Encava sounds like how nightclubs sound as a kid” because I feel like the music sounds like these dreams or perceptions of reality that they represent. These dreams are really important due to not being able to do much regarding the problems happening in real life, so it comes more to the front.
Nick: Something that I’ve always been curious about in Sound Collage specifically is the order of creating an albums theme. In your case, does it come before or after searching for samples and other instrumentation?
Juan: It was 50-50 pretty much. From the start we wanted to make something really chaotic, inserting many layers of sounds from Venezuelan culture. It was more of a compositional approach, because we drew a lot of inspiration from lush-sounding albums which made us produce the music first and add the FX on top afterwards
Nick: There was a huge emphasis on buses in this album, in both the samples, especially the final track, “PROPAGANDA,” where it’s blaring in a Dark Ambient styling, as well as the visual on the Tropical Sadness YouTube channel. Why go all in on buses?!
Alvaro: The analogy that is the basis of the album is about the familiarity we have with these buses, since most Venezuelans use them even daily as a way to move around the city. Encava is only the brand, but it is the one you will find the most when using public transportation here. The buses represent us as a collective, so we use it to make commentary on the problems that we have such as the migratory situations we go through and the feelings our lives cause.
Sami: buses are always moving, and in these buses, the musical selection always has a lot to do with the person that is driving. In a way, in this trip we are the drivers, so it captures the soundscapes and dreams that live inside the head of a Venezuelan person from this era.
Glitch: This also has to do with the fact that most musical mixes that get played in buses tend to predominantly feature Salsa music, which tends to be a nostalgic and sad style of music most times. So when you’re commuting regularly through your work week, you get these moments where you listen to the music and the lyrics and it really connects you to an emotional place which is what inspired the album’s sound too.
Nick: Staying on “PROPAGANDA,” that might be my favorite track of the album. Like I said, this felt like a darker and tension-heavy tone to end on compared to earlier releases. Why did you guys decide to leave things on that note?
Alvaro: The main narrative of the album revolves around nostalgia, and how we need to not get carried away by it, because even though memories can be beautiful, they can hold us back from progress. Sometimes I feel like Venezuelan people see more future in their past than their present, so in the ending of the album where the protagonist commits suicide, it represents what can happen to a person not finding the right path and getting lost in these memories, which is something we fight against.
Nick: To me, another highlight on this album was the track, “Camisa Ovejita Blanca,” that dropped into the beat was chef’s kiss. What was the main sample that you used for it?
Sami: We don't like to talk much about what samples we use (because it's funny to be mysterious), but in the drop, the guitar isn't a sample, it's Alvaro’s cuatro but it's really distorted.
Alvaro: Most of the guitars in the album are me, but some of them are very distorted synth leads which I ran through pedals I made; also, there are some Gato vocals I distorted as well as used as leads.
Weed420 - "Amor de Encava" (2025) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
[Tropical Sadness革命]. (2025, February 14). weed420 ~ amor de encava 'ʸᵒᵘᵗᵘᵇᵉ⁻ʳᶦᵖ' #weed420 [Video].
Nick: I also saw that Tropical Sadness published a video where some of you guys went out into the city streets and interviewed an array of characters you encountered. Because my Spanish is dogshit, what was the overall objective of that outing if there was one?
Alvaro: They are bus drivers, it’s part of our folklore. They are very common characters within our lives, they’re people that are always outside working and have many interesting things to say, many stories to tell. They tend to be very charismatic, it was really funny when we interviewed them.
Glitch: We wanted to better comprehend what the routine is like for this type of worker, and also so people who do not know who they are can be aware of what their lives and experiences are like.
Nick: Who filmed this? What device did you use? The low quality makes this look like some random YouTube video from 2007.
Glitch: I recorded the video with a Samsung PL120 which is a compact digital camera from 2011. It looks really pretty honestly, but I reduced the resolution when editing the video so it looks worse which compliments the aesthetic of the project/album because we use a bunch of samples of old songs. I wanted to give this old-school vibe to visuals also.
Alvaro: the whole slacker aesthetic is also inspired from our roots using limited equipment. The first computer I used to make music only had 2G of RAM, so we opted to go the lo-fi route and make it a dirtier sound, I had that PC when we started producing the album, but even tho i recently bought like an exponentially better PC, i still prefer to do lo-fi stuff; there’s a warmth to it I don’t feel when doing anything else.
[Tropical Sadness革命]. (2025, March 8). weed420 entrevista a encaveros (amor de encava) [Video].
Nick: To reel things back to the beginning, there’s been a bubbling music scene in Caracas through the help of the Tropical Sadness crew. What’s the scene like? Are there other genres at play or is it composed of a diverse array of Latin Electronic, Reggaeton and Sound Collage similar to what you guys do?
Glitch: We’re kind of standouts regarding other acts, there aren't many people doing the genres we make. There is a big Hip-Hop scene that has been present for years in Venezuela and big acts that have always been very important and influential like Guerrilla Seca, MC Ardilla or Canserbero. There are also artists that fit inside the styles we do, Arca, 1xxe, Ghost Channel, but there aren’t that many. There also are people that maybe didn’t have much influence in the music we make but did inspire us to make music in the first place.
Swan: That kinda sucks, you know? There’s a lot of great artists here that have to go out of the country to really start to have a name by themselves because there isn’t a lot of backing of left-field artists here
Nick: How did the earliest members meet in 2021? Did it come first through online interactions or through the local scene?
Glitch: when we first started we weren’t a musical collective, we were just a group of friends that talked about music. In 2021 I started listening to the HexD wave and I started showing it to the group. I showed it to Gabo and it really resonated with him, causing him to make his first Mixtape which was “Rare Venezuelan Real Trampa HexD.” He bitcrushed the songs and we helped add SFX too. It was released through Bandcamp and then I released it through YouTube also.
Alvaro: IRL interactions have also changed through time. I met Glitch in 2023 on his birthday and I met Juan Diego in uni since we were studying the same major.
Swan: After these newer interactions we decided to work as a group on projects, like “RVRT3.” That’s when I joined the group through a post on Facebook that Glitch made where they were making a public call for people to finish the mix. Many people joined the group during this time that maybe aren’t active anymore but are also part of the story of the group.
Nick: You guys already brought it up but according to Rate Your Music, the earliest release of Weed420 was the DJ mix, “DJ Xeart's Rare Venezuelan Real Trampa HexD” by Gabo Xeart. Is it fair to say that this DJ mix laid the groundwork for what would become Weed420? If so, in what ways?
Glitch: yeah, it set the standard for the aesthetic codes for the group’s output. the internet-esque visuals, and the low-bit sound paired with samples like Waldemaro Martinez’ voice and old video games like Counter Strike, and old elements from Venezuelan culture.
Nick: Your work aside, was Elysia Crampton ever an inspiration, considering how much they helped propel Latin Experimental/Ethereal music into the internet age?
Sami: personally, I admire and identify with many facets of the Cramptons' work. At their most imposing, their music militates identity with needed strike, as Andean music has always been about where we're from and what we're worth. Having lived 10 years in Perú, Huayno and Saya take me back to my childhood, and the puckish spirit that still haunts and inspires me to this day.
Swan: I like to think of "ADE" as like the “El Sueño del Forastero” cousin; even though Elysia's work talks about a person emigrating, in our work we portray the sound of a trip within our own country. The difference is that the journey within the “Encava” are two faces of the same coin, because while we listen to the album we feel at home, with the people, the music, the buses, the colors. We are inside a dream from which we don't want to wake, but sadly on the other face of the coin, we are hit with reality when we see ourselves, how much we've grown and how things have changed with the passing of time. It's great for things to change, but for us, it feels more like going backwards.
Weed420 - "RVRT 3" (2023) DJ mix cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Gabo Xeart - "DJ Xeart's Rare Venezuelan Real Trampa HexD" (2021) DJ mix cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Nick: We've finally reached my favorite Weed420 release, the 2024 mixtape, “Malandreo Conceptual.” I feel like you guys hit a perfect stride with this one in both transitions and mixing. I think it might be one of the best examples of Ethereal music we have had in the past few years. I also really wished I gave this one a listen when it was still 2024, would have definitely been inducted to my best albums article for that year…might have to update that list. Regardless, I saw that by this time, there were more contributors to Weed420, likely from Tropical Sadness. Did this influx of artists help flesh out this mixtape and if so, in what ways?
Juan: I mean, for what I know the whole way we made music changed when we started working on that mixtape, Alvaro told me that before everyone made their respective songs and he would change them a little bit, then he’d do the mix and that was it; since “Malandreo” we discuss an idea for a track and then everyone sends their own samples so we can see what works and what doesn’t
Alvaro: yeah, the only thing with “Malandreo” was that we didn’t discard anything, everything somebody sent was used on the project; instead, in "ADE" we did have a curation process, there’s like four songs that didn’t make the final cut that we kinda like but we decided to just leave it at 11 tracks; they’re on my PC so i’ll probably just upload them somewhere
Nick: By any chance are you guys hoping to put together another mixtape in the future? Would it possibly be a sequel or successor to “Malandreo Conceptual?”
Alvaro: We've thought about it, we've been working on new songs lately for a new project. Nonetheless, the idea of these songs having anything to do with "Malandreo Conceptual" isn't crossing our minds, because the theme of that mixtape was born and died within itself. It originated as a way to make fun of a movement which felt dishonest and we don't feel like making anymore comments regarding that as of right now.
Weed420 - "Malandreo Conceptual" (2024) mixtape cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: Another aspect I like about this mixtape is the visual that dropped alongside it. There’s a lot that occurs in just under 40 minutes that reminds me of those old Vaporwave visuals from the early 2010s, yet at the same time they pull from present-day web sensibilities and meme tropes. Who put this together and what moments or highlights on this visual do each of you guys consider to be the most significant and expanding to the themes of this mixtape?
Glitch: the visuals for "Malandreo Conceptual" were done by me, taking clips from various videos and memes from the internet, from American culture as well as Venezuelan culture, using videogame videos, but mostly CS 1.6 (this being the main focus of the project). CS is not only important for us, the members of Weed420, but it's also part of the venezuela internet culture. Because of this and other social topics, I decided to pick this game as the center of this tape; one of the first things that were done for “Malandreo Conceptual” were the artworks. I started by making cover arts with screencaps I took while playing CS and would manipulate them with Photoshop, which helped us shape what the tape came to be.
[Tropical Sadness革命]. (2024, January 13). weed420 - malandreo conceptual #Weed420 [Video].
Nick: On the last release I’ll bring up, unlike the mixtape, the follow-up EP, “EVILCHANGA,” had a much heavier influence of Dubstep and Reggaeton, as well an overall harsher batch of beats and mixing. Why did you guys want to take that route for that EP?
Juan: First of all, that was like the most rushed project of all time. We did it in like a week where most of us were really busy with Uni stuff, but we had to drop something that day, it’s a tradition for us (4/20).
Alvaro: yeah, during that time I was revisiting Skream’s debut album and I really love that project, that and Shackleton’s earlier stuff had an impact for me in the way i produce and compose, but it shows especially in my input in “EVILCHANGA”; also, 1xxe’s samples were really based on that vibe and they were used all around the EP
Nick: One of the best tracks on this EP, to me anyways, is “Letras Azules” which features the rapper, Rubyred. Where do you know them from and how did that track come together?
Juan: We saw “Business Casual” on the mixtape charts on RYM and listened to it. We really fucked with it and decided we could probably collab with them in a future project of us; when “EVILCHANGA” came about, we sent them the “Letras Azules” beat, which was called “Indebapis” back then, and then they did the verse.
Alvaro: I remember they sent the verse like a day before 4/20 which was completely fine for us, we’ve normalized finishing our projects a day or two before the release; the same happened with “ADE,” I did some changes in the mixes of “Nada va a Pasar” and “MALUCA.”
Nick: Who designed the cover? I like the character you guys decided to have as your mascot. He seems chill and nonchalant.
Glitch: I did it and like the project itself, it was greatly improvised. I took inspiration from old YouTube animations (asdfmovie precisely), from a 3D render of a DJ that I saw while looking for pictures online and from the logo I made for the group. Then after taking all of this, I made a sketch on paper, sent that to Photoshop and then finished it up in Illustrator. I don't like that artwork that much, I think I could have done it better if I did it today, but it's pretty cool because it made me develop the image of our "mascot" more (a cat with a weed head lol). Something funny about this character is that he doesn't have a name, but a friend of ours calls him "weedy" which is cool.
Weed420 - "EVILCHANGA" (2024) EP cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: Finally, any future developments in the Weed420 timeline that you guys would like to alert the people to?
Juan: we’re planning shows here in Venezuela and still doing a lot of music now that we have a little more free time; so we’d suggest for y’all to watch what’s coming next
Thanks for doing this interview. You guys are my first Latin artists which is pretty sick and I hope to interview more in the future. Anything to leave us on?
No follamos con javierhalamadrid!