Maná's 'Latino Power' tour aims to get out the vote

Veteran Mexican rockers Maná plan to hit the road on tour later this year with a concert series that will be as much about politics as music.

The four-man band announced its 18-city U.S. “Latino Power” tour will kick-off just two months before the U.S. presidential election. The band, which has long history of social activism in Mexico and abroad, says the tour’s aim is in large part to rally Latinos to vote in November’s election.

“We have baptized our new tour ‘Latino Power,’ because with the strength of their collective vote this year, U.S. Latinos can further empower our community—demanding more respect and effecting real change in the living conditions and opportunities for our people,” Maná lead singer Fher Olvera said in statement announcing the tour.

The tour will launch on Sept. 9 in San Diego, and end on Nov. 8 in Sacramento. Tickets go on sale Feb. 19.

Maná hasn’t publicly endorsed any candidate, but the band was among the first Latino celebrities to speak out last year against Donald Trump’s incendiary comments about Mexican immigrants.

“(Trump) said we were trash, he said that the people who come from Latin America and Mexico are rapists, thugs and drug dealers,” Olvera said during a sold-out show in Los Angeles in June. “Those were his words. We feel pity for this incompetent man. I have never heard a speech as violent, or as filled with hatred — not since Hitler.”

Olvera then added, “It doesn’t matter what one cabrón said. Just remember that he insulted our fathers, our mothers, he insulted everyone. And that is inadmissible.”