Las Acevedo

The Weather Smells like Oranges EP cover art.

Las Acevedo was a Caribbean folk band created and produced by Dominican artist Ismael Ogando as part of the Dominican Activism Revival movement in 2010 that engaged topics of Afro-heritage in the contemporary Caribbean context.^[1] The duo is composed by Anabel and Cristabel Acevedo, twin sisters born January 23, 1989, in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic.

The band reached popularity with their single "Chaka Chaka" in 2010 after the release of the EP "The Weather Smells Like Oranges". An Afro-naïve 5 tracks Folk EP produced in spanglish, which was featured as the Caribbean reference for the so-called "New Weird Latin-American Music" wave, due to the unique combination of minimalistic arrangements of ukulele, bongo, tambourine and asymmetric vocals.^[2]

Raised in an adventist family, the sisters started taking music classes until age 19 when were discovered by Ismael Ogando, who proposed the band's name and concept as a new way of activism using Pop Music and lyrics in English as a critic for the strong influence of the United States' Neoliberal economics' culture in Dominican Republic. Labeled as Picnic-Pop,^[3] the band reached notoriety in the Latin-American indie scene after being featured by Club Fonograma, touring Europe,^[4] The Caribbean, South and North America. Reaching their highest momentum at the VIVA LA CANCION festival, in Madrid 2011, which followed by a significant decline in popularity with the tribute compilation "La Chamana" for Chavela Vargas.^[5]

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