‘It’s Obviously Not True’: Latin Pop Superstar Karol G Denies Nicolás Maduro’s Bizarre Claim She Wrote Song for Venezuela’s Sham Election

Karol G performs at Unipol Forum of Assago on June 25, 2024 in Milan, Italy. (Sergione Inf
Sergione Infuso/Corbis via Getty
Christian K. Caruzo

Representatives of Colombian singer Karol G denied statements recently made by Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro in which he claimed she had “sent” him a song to use for his presidential campaign ahead of July 28’s sham election.

Carolina Giraldo Navarro, who goes by the stage name Karol G, is an internationally successful reggaetón and urban pop singer from Medellín, Colombia, who has earned multiple awards, including five Latin Grammy Awards and four Billboard Music Awards. In February, Billboard named her 2024’s Woman of the Year. While she is most popular in her home country and throughout Latin America, Karol G is well-known in America and has sold out shows throughout the United States.

Venezuela is scheduled to hold a sham presidential election on July 28 after the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden failed in his effort to entice the rogue socialist regime to hold a “free and fair” election. Nicolás Maduro, the “frontrunner” in an election in which only regime-approved losing candidates were allowed on the ballot with him, claimed on Monday evening that Karol G “sent” him a song to use for his campaign.

“Karol G sent me a song for the campaign, we are going to premiere it these [following] days — look I already rehearsed the dance,” Maduro said during a campaign event before showing off what appeared to be dance moves.

“Because here I am known as El Gallo Pinto [“The Spotted Rooster,” the name of a children’s song] but abroad they are calling me Nicol G, I don’t know why,” he continued.

The Venezuelan dictator’s claims were refuted by representatives of Karol G on Tuesday in remarks given to the Colombian newspaper El Colombiano. The representatives reiterated that the singer’s music has never been used for political purposes.

“There is no truth to the assertions of politicians or political parties that have mentioned that Karol has sent songs for campaigns,” Karol G’s representatives told El Colombiano. “Karol’s music has never been used for such purposes. We deny these assertions.”

The representatives of the Colombian singer also refuted Maduro’s claims in statements given to the Colombian news channel NTN24, stressing that they are discussing the issue with the singer’s public relations staff “because obviously, it is not true.”

Maduro, alongside the socialist governor of Carabobo state Rafael Lacava, danced to the tune of “Amargura,” one of Karol G’s songs, during a campaign rally held in the city of Puerto La Cruz, Anzoátegui, in late June. Neither Karol G nor any of the singer’s representatives have publicly commented on the matter at press time.

The Venezuelan dictator launched an effort last year to “rebrand” his image, seeking to distract from the massive list of human rights violations that his authoritarian socialist regime continues to commit and from the crisis of Venezuelan migrants. Maduro’s socialist policies have led over 7.7 million Venezuelans — nearly a third of the country’s roughly 30 million population — to flee in the past decade.

In addition to youth-oriented videos on the Chinese social media app Tiktok, the Maduro regime’s state media debuted M Factor, a reality television show that featured a competition for local musicians where the winners — and their original pro-regime tracks — were granted a spot on Maduro’s “official soundtrack” for the presidential campaign ahead of the upcoming sham election.

The contest, which ended in June, concluded with 12 winners after Maduro decided to double the available soundtrack spots from the original six.

The use of Karol G’s music and the now-refuted claims Maduro made this week are not the first incident of the Maduro regime attempting to co-opt the discography of international artists for sham electoral campaigns.

In 2017, the Maduro regime illicitly used the international smash hit “Despacito” for political purposes, producing a version with modified lyrics in favor of the socialist regime’s campaign for a “Constituent Assembly” that nullified the legislative powers of the then-opposition-led National Assembly. The Constituent Assembly was dismantled in 2020 after the Maduro regime held a sham legislative election.

The incident prompted Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, the song’s original performers, to condemn Maduro’s unauthorized use of the song. Maduro accused the United States of “forcing” the artists to condemn his regime’s use of the song.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.

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