This interview was conducted in Spanish. Manuel Yegres’s responses have been translated and lightly edited for clarity and length. Relevant original Spanish responses appear directly beneath the passages they support.

For Manuel Yegres, authenticity is not a branding exercise. It is the standard he uses to decide whether a song, image, performance or idea is worth pursuing.

“I always want to cause something real in the audience,” he says. That instinct reaches beyond music. Yegres describes himself as an artist who does not want to leave the canvas blank—whether the medium is songwriting, visual work, video or performance.

Original Spanish

Cabilliant: ¿Cómo describirías a Manuel Yegres como artista, en tus propias palabras?

Manuel Yegres: Manuel Yegres busca siempre causar algo real en el espectador. Ya sea en imagenes, videos, composiciones o interpretacion. Manuel Yegres es un artista que no quiere dejar el lienzo en blanco nunca.

That philosophy has taken years to define. His story begins in eastern Venezuela, passes through Caracas, returns to the landscape and culture of Cumanacoa, and continues through a creative network that eventually connected him with Derek Romero, Kendflow and Cabilliant.

From Cumaná to Caracas, Then Back to Cumanacoa

Yegres was born in Cumaná in 1998. Soon afterward, his parents moved to Caracas in search of better employment opportunities. At age 10, the family returned to Sucre state and settled in Cumanacoa—a place he now describes as home.

For Yegres, Cumanacoa is more than a geographic reference. He remembers it as picturesque, surrounded by nature and culturally rich. That relationship with place has become increasingly important as his artistic identity has matured.

Original Spanish

Cabilliant: ¿Dónde naciste y creciste, y qué lugares consideras importantes para tu identidad?

Manuel Yegres: Nací en cumana, 1998. luego de mi nacimiento mis padres deciden irse a caracas a buscar mejor oportunidad de empleo, luego a mis 10 años de edad decidimos volver al estado sucre, especificamente cumanacoa. ese lugar se convirtio en mi hogar, es un lugar pintoresco, lleno de naturaleza y culturalmente es muy grande

Music entered his life even earlier. One of his first memories is watching his father rehearse with a keyboard in their Caracas apartment. His father sang at events and accompanied himself with MIDI sequences, a process that fascinated Yegres enough that he began imitating him.

At seven years old, his father encouraged him to sing live for the first time. They rehearsed Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina.” The performance did not go as planned: Yegres stepped on the keyboard cable and unplugged the entire setup in the middle of the show.

The story is funny now, but it also captures something important. Music was never an abstract ambition in his childhood; it was something happening in the room, inside the family and eventually onstage.

By the time he entered secondary school in Cumanacoa, he was participating in cultural activities and writing his first song for a student social event.

Original Spanish

Cabilliant: ¿Cómo comenzó tu relación con la música? ¿Cuál es tu recuerdo más antiguo de querer cantar, escribir o hacer música?

Manuel Yegres: recuerdo a mi padre ensayar con un teclado en el apartamento en caracas, el solia cantar en eventos y se acompañaba con secuencias Midi en su teclado. me parecia fascinante lo que hacía y como consecuencia empecé a imitarlo. recuerdo que a mis 7 años el me motivo a cantar en vivo por primera vez, ensayamos la cancion “la Gasolina – Daddy Yanke” y salio muy mal, pise el cable del piano y le desenchufe todo en pleno show. Luego al ingresar el Liceo en cumanacoa solia participar en actividades culturales y fue alli cuando escribi mi primera cancion para un acto social de liceos.

Writing Songs Like Movies

Yegres does not describe songwriting as a strictly autobiographical process. More often, a scene begins to play in his imagination.

“In my mind, a movie starts playing,” he explains. He may begin with an emotion he has experienced, then build an alternate story around it. Other times, the starting point is purely musical: a rhythm, a melody or a set of drums that creates the atmosphere before the narrative exists.

Original Spanish

Cabilliant: ¿Cómo empezaste a escribir canciones? ¿Qué suele aparecer primero para ti: una idea, una frase, una melodía, una experiencia o un beat?

Manuel Yegres: en mi mente se reproduce una pelicula, casi nunca escribo sobre mi. fantaseo mucho y plasmo una version alternada en lo que sentí en un momento similar en contexto a la historia que me estoy imaginando. pero aveces la musa llega a consecuencia del ritmo, una melodia, unos drums.

Heartbreak appears frequently in his writing—something he jokes about himself—but the emotional subject is useful because it gives him a wide range of tension, memory and vulnerability to explore.

Original Spanish

Cabilliant: ¿Qué temas aparecen frecuentemente en tus letras o en las historias que te interesa contar?

Manuel Yegres: El desamor, ni yo entiendo por que todo es desamor jajajaja. pero siento que es el sentimiento que mas le he podido sacar provecho.

His strongest standard is not technical perfection. It is whether the performance carries what he calls “the soul.” In his view, audiences can immediately perceive art that has been executed correctly but contains no emotional life.

Original Spanish

Cabilliant: ¿Qué buscas transmitir cuando interpretas una canción? ¿Qué diferencia para ti una buena interpretación vocal de simplemente cantar correctamente?

Manuel Yegres: el alma, es muy facil persibir el arte sin alma, y yo no quiero eso.

The Ricardo Montaner Test

Asked about influence, Yegres names Ricardo Montaner without hesitation.

Montaner represents a kind of internal benchmark for his songwriting. When Yegres writes something, he imagines whether the Venezuelan singer-songwriter might hear it and react with a simple “wow.”

At the same time, Yegres resists defining himself through one genre. He says music in general has always been a refuge, and he is drawn toward work that feels genuine regardless of style.

Original Spanish

Cabilliant: ¿Qué artistas, géneros, escenas, lugares o etapas de tu vida han tenido mayor influencia en tu manera de hacer música?

Manuel Yegres: Mi artista preferido es Ricardo Montaner, es el mejor de todos los tiempos. siempre que escribo algo digo: “que ricardo montaner diga -wao- si lo llega a escuchar”. pero la musica en general es mi refugio siempre. conecto mucho con los todos lo generos musicales. mientras mas genuiono sea alli estaréyo.

That openness also shapes how he chooses collaborators. He is most interested in artists and producers with a musical point of view that differs from whatever sound is currently dominating global charts. Replication for its own sake does not interest him.

Original Spanish

Cabilliant: ¿Cómo describirías tu relación con colaboraciones? ¿Qué necesita tener otro artista o productor para que sientas que pueden crear algo bueno juntos?

Manuel Yegres: tener un criterio y gusto musical bien diferente a lo trending. me da mucha pena trabajar con personas que simplemente quieren replicar el sonido del artista top global

Kendflow, Cabilliant and a Different Way of Working

Yegres met Kendflow through Derek Romero. Romero told him that a friend wanted to connect and explore a possible collaboration. What began as an introduction turned into hours of video calls about releases, ideas, ambition, music and art.

Yegres describes Kendflow as one of the most creative people he knows and says that his own current workflow has been strongly influenced by their time working together.

Original Spanish

Cabilliant: ¿Cómo conociste a Kendflow y cómo comenzó su relación creativa?

Manuel Yegres: Lo conocí por medio de Derek Romero, Derek y yo hablamos de proyectos y un día me comenta que uno de sus amigos queria contactarme para ver de que manera podriamos colaborar. desde ese día pasabamos horas en video llamadas planificando lanzamientos, ideas, ambiciones, musica, arte en general. es de las personas mas creativa del mundo que conozco. Mi work flow actual esta muy influenciado por el

The relationship also gave him something he had struggled to find elsewhere: room to create without immediately reducing the work to the expectations of the music industry.

He describes that period as one of the clearest opportunities he has had to express his art without making it superficial. There is still unreleased material from those sessions, and Yegres sees part of that work as worth preserving even if every recording never becomes a commercial release.

Original Spanish

Cabilliant: Kendflow ha mencionado que existe bastante música inédita entre ustedes. ¿Cómo describirías esa etapa trabajando juntos y qué representaba ese proyecto para ti?

Manuel Yegres: Es la oportunidad de expresar mi arte mas real que he tenido, sin duda. La industria musical te aplasta, te satura. pero trabajar proyectos con Kendflow es distinto, es arte en su manera menos superficial.

His description of Cabilliant is equally direct: “Cabilliant is my family and my school.” For him, having space inside the project is something he expects to remain grateful for throughout his life.

Original Spanish

Cabilliant: ¿Qué papel ha tenido Cabilliant en tu historia hasta ahora y qué significa para ti formar parte de este proyecto?

Manuel Yegres: Cabilliant es mi familia y mi escuela. el tener la oportunida de llenar un espacio en esta casa es algo de lo que voy a estar agradecido y orgulloso toda la vida.

Making Peace With Where He Comes From

One of the most important shifts in Yegres’s artistic identity has been cultural.

He remembers a period when Venezuelan artists could feel pressure to sound more Puerto Rican or Colombian in order to be considered commercially viable. He no longer wants to build his work around that expectation.

Instead, one of his long-term ambitions is to create an album rooted in the sounds of Cumanacoa and Sucre state. He imagines recording traditional sounds from his hometown and combining them with his own musical language.

He points specifically toward traditions such as the galerón and toward the legacy of Cruz Alejandro Quinal, the Sucre musician and instrument maker closely associated with the bandolín morocho. For Yegres, those references are not nostalgia for its own sake. They represent material that can still become part of new music.

The goal is not to reproduce folklore unchanged. It is to build a cultural mixture that sounds like him.

Original Spanish

Cabilliant: ¿Hay palabras, expresiones, referencias culturales, lugares o experiencias personales que aparezcan regularmente en tu música y sean importantes para entenderla?

Manuel Yegres: hice las pases con mi cultura, mucho tiempo se nos presiono a volvernos mas Boricuas o mas colombianos para poder “sonar más” pero ya eso se acabó. mi sueño es hacer un album lleno de sonidos de mi pueblo cumanacoa. en cumancoa se escucha mucho los galerones, incluso un artista llamado Cruz Quinal inventó el Bandolin morocho, seria una locura tomar esos sonidos y combinarlo con mi escencia

Original Spanish

Cabilliant: ¿Qué quieres hacer musicalmente que todavía no has tenido la oportunidad de hacer?

Manuel Yegres: quiero encontrar un sonido diferente. quiero tener un mezcla cultural, mi sueño es poder grabar sonidos autoctonos de mi pueblo y fucionarlos con mi musica.

The Artist He Is Still Becoming

Yegres looks back at the artist he was more than a decade ago as someone trying to find himself. Today, he feels closer to an identity that reflects what he actually wants to contribute to music and art.

Original Spanish

Cabilliant: ¿Cómo ha cambiado tu sonido, tu manera de escribir o tu identidad artística desde que empezaste hasta hoy?

Manuel Yegres: el Manuel de hace 13 años simplemente queria encontrarse y vivia perdido en ese camino. hoy en dia manuel yegres tiene un identidad mas fiel a lo que realmente quiere ser. Hoy se que quiero aportar en la musica, en el arte en general.

Even so, he does not speak as if that process is finished. The project he currently believes will represent him most honestly is still being developed. That sense of unfinished work is central to his identity: the desire to keep searching for a sound that feels different, personal and culturally grounded.

Original Spanish

Cabilliant: ¿Qué canción o proyecto publicado hasta ahora sientes que representa mejor quién eres como artista y por qué?

Manuel Yegres: Aun no la he publicado. pero estamos trabajando en eso, un mix tape de 3 canciones. las mas reales

Visually, he gravitates toward electric blue, abstraction and natural environments—beaches, mountains and landscapes that echo the places he values personally. Yet he says one of the most important parts of his artistic life is rarely visible online: the process behind the camera, where the ideas are actually built.

Original Spanish

Cabilliant: ¿Qué elementos visuales, colores, estilos de ropa, lugares, objetos o referencias sientes que representan naturalmente a Manuel Yegres?

Manuel Yegres: me identifico mucho por el color azul electrico, con lo visual soy bastante abstracto, con la ropa capaz si soy bastante lineal nada del otro mundo. me encanta la playa , la montaña, la naturaleza en general.

Original Spanish

Cabilliant: ¿Qué parte de tu personalidad o de tu vida casi nunca aparece en redes sociales pero ayuda a entender quién eres como artista?

Manuel Yegres: el detras de camara, casi nunca muestro mi proceso creativo y eso es lo que más define quien soy.

That may be the clearest way to understand Manuel Yegres. The finished song matters, but so does the search behind it: the imagined film before the lyric, the conversation before the collaboration, the hometown sound before it becomes part of a new production.

Asked what he would want someone discovering his archive 20 years from now to understand beyond the songs themselves, his answer is simple:

He always wanted to be real with his art.

Original Spanish

Cabilliant: Si alguien encuentra el archivo de Manuel Yegres dentro de 20 años, ¿qué quieres que entienda de ti que escuchar solamente tus canciones no sería suficiente para explicar?

Manuel Yegres: que siempre quise ser real con mi arte.

Manuel Yegres, In His Own Words: Cumanacoa, Authenticity and the Music Still Ahead