King Changó was a Latin ska band from New York City, with roots in Venezuela. Its name comes from Changó, the Afro-Cuban god of war.

The band has its beginnings in 1994 when José Andres Blanco (AKA “Blanquito Man”) emigrated from Venezuela to New York, in search of better opportunities in his artistic career. They started playing a mix of reggae and ska, but the great cultural variety of The Big Apple filtered their music and they began to fuse what they already did with salsa, vallenato and cumbia. Four more musicians were added and the band, enriched its sound and its experimentation capacity.

It was precisely this fusion of sounds that caught the attention of David Byrne (Talking Heads), leader of the record company Luaka Bop, with which they signed a contract for their debut album titled with the same name of the band. They would quickly reach the head of the International Latin Rock. It is from this first album that they are known at very distant points in the world, such as Venezuela, Mexico, Spain or Japan.

The publication of his second album “El Regreso del Santo”, in 2000, would be their last album. The album is a tribute to the Mexican hero “El Santo”, combining rhythms of Trip-Hop, ballads, Ska-Punk, Drum'n'Bass and Venezuelan rhythms. The band would be at the height of their fame when they performed in front of +100,000 people at the 2002 Montreal Jazz Festival. Later, in 2003, the band ceased to produce music as other musical projects began in progress.

On the 2010, the band reunited and toured in Venezuela and the United States until 2011.

“Blanquito Man” was diagnosed with colon cancer in December 2014 when he had emergency surgery for a tumor that ruptured his intestine. Since then he has had many more surgeries, as well as complications, infections, blood transfusions, extended hospital stays and many painful moments.

On November 16, 2017, founding member José Andrés Blanco “Blanquito Man” dies after a long battle against cancer.