Elena Rose can’t hold back her tears. At her home in Miami, where she spends most of her time since leaving her native Venezuela almost nine years ago to become one of the most sought-after Latin songwriters of her generation, she is eagerly awaiting the premiere of a project she started to work on three years ago — “Caracas en el 2000” with Danny Ocean and Jerry Di — which finally comes out Thursday (October 26).
As cheerful as it is nostalgic, the tropical song with urban touches is a love letter to the city where the three artists grew up, each in a different socioeconomic area, before the political situation led them, as so many others, to emigrate in search of better opportunities. “What I would give for a thing like that/ You and me in Caracas like in 2000/ Skating around La Cota Mil/ With the macaws/ With such a flow, baby,” says part of the lyrics.
“We were children at that time,” Elena Rose explains to Billboard Español about the reason of the year 2000 in an interview via Zoom. “Beyond the fact that chronologically the country was in a better place, we wanted to show that innocence from three people who had very different lives even though they grew up in the same city.
“I feel that this is how the mind of a child who is enjoying too much on a day at the beach, on a day you went out skateboarding, would sound,” adds the singer-songwriter and only woman nominated for the 2023 Latin Grammy for songwriter of the year. “The feeling of what that soundtrack would sound like just when you go out to recess and are set free from all the classes. It’s pure joy.”
“Caracas en el 2000,” a Warner Music Latina release, was written by Elena Rose, Danny Ocean and Jerry Di and produced by Maff and DJ Tra. Elena Rose’s younger sister, Cristina “Pichu” Hernández, also contributed to the lyrics in its initial stages and now has a starring role in the music video, in which she plays Elena as a teenager. (The three singers, who are portrayed by young actors, also appear in different scenes but filmed their parts in the U.S.)
Directed by Beto Monte and Rodrigo Michelangeli and produced by Capitol, the clip shows emblematic places of Caracas such as the El Ávila hill, the Humboldt Hotel, La Previsora tower (with its iconic digital clock) and different squares, avenues and neighborhoods. In a little over four minutes, it condenses the energy of the city and the joy and strength of its people. It took over a year of work, carried out mostly by Monte (better known as Alberto “Beto” Montenegro of the Venezuelan rock/reggae band Rawayana), who was constantly traveling to Caracas to record visuals, Elena Rose points out how meaningful and personal it’s been for her.
“They recorded the video at my school with the teachers who taught me. My grandmother is in the video. La Pichu, the sister I wrote the song with, is the one who played me when I was little. It’s really remarkable for that reason,” she says with emotion. “They took photos from when I was a child, they even recreated the tattoos I made with markers, what my school bag was like, my little necklaces and things I wore. I mean, can you imagine, it is one of the most important productions and the one I feel most proud to be a part of.”
Now that it is out, she hopes to enjoy the result of the great teamwork involved in the making of the song and the video, and bring part of her culture to the world.
“I hope it serves as a message of hope and faith both for the Caracas native who stayed and for the one that left, and for the one who returns, and for the one who wants to leave,” she says. “It is a message of love everywhere you see it, where there is no mention of religion or politics or social class or sexual inclination or color or money; simply of what unites all of us Caracas, and that is the love for that city. We are proud to come from where we come from.”
Watch the “Caracas en el 2000” video above.
