MEXICO CITY — In a packed nightclub in Mexico Metropolis, a whole bunch of younger individuals sang alongside as a band performed a preferred tune narrating the lifetime of a foot soldier for the Sinaloa drug cartel.
I prefer to work/ And if the order is to kill / You don’t query it.
And for many who misbehave/ There’s no probability to clarify/ I throw them into the grave.
Narcocorridos — or drug ballads — are extra fashionable than ever in Mexico, the place a brand new era that got here of age through the ongoing drug conflict has embraced songs that recount and infrequently glamorize each the spoils and perils of organized crime.
However the style is more and more beneath assault. A couple of third of Mexico’s states and plenty of of its cities have enacted some sort of ban on the efficiency of songs about narcos in recent times, with violators topic to heavy fines and jail time.
Mexico Metropolis could also be subsequent. Mayor Clara Brugada mentioned she plans to introduce a regulation that may bar the songs from being performed at authorities occasions and on authorities property.
“We can’t be promoting violence through music,” she mentioned.
Musicians carry out on the fashionable Los Guitarrazos occasion in Mexico Metropolis, the place narcocorridos, or drug ballads, are frequent.
The bans, which come amid President Trump’s hyper-focus on drug trafficking in Mexico, have sparked debates right here about freedom of expression and state censorship and have raised provocative questions: Do narcocorridos merely replicate actuality in a nation gripped by highly effective drug gangs? Or do they by some means form it?
Mentioned Amaya, the organizer of Guitarrazos, the occasion on the nightclub in Mexico Metropolis the place a number of singers carried out narcocorridos final week, mentioned authorities focus needs to be on bettering safety, not persecuting younger musicians.
“If you change the reality, the music might change,” Amaya mentioned. “But you’re not going to change the reality by censoring songs.”
Drug ballads belong to the style of corridos, a musical custom born within the 1800s that helped chronicle life at a time when many individuals couldn’t learn or write.
Every tune informed a narrative. There have been corridos concerning the exploits of bandits and outlaws, a few of them Robin Hood-esque characters who outwitted oafish authorities and helped the poor. Others narrated chapters of the Mexican Revolution or the U.S. invasion of Mexico in 1846.
In more moderen years, as Mexico turned a key gateway for the U.S. drug market, enriching some individuals and claiming the lives of a whole bunch of hundreds of others, musicians have described that, too.
“The entire social history of Mexico is narrated through corridos,” mentioned José Manuel Valenzuela Arce, a sociologist in Tijuana. “It’s an intangible part of our cultural heritage.”
1. An viewers member wears a diamond chain on the dance flooring at Los Guitarrazos. 2. Drug ballads belong to the style of corridos, a musical custom born within the 1800s that helped chronicle life at a time when many individuals couldn’t learn or write.
Valenzuela wrote a e-book concerning the latest model of drug ballads, generally known as corridos tumbados, which mix acoustic guitar, brassy horns and the aesthetic and lyrical content material of U.S. gangster rap. Proponents of the music, like artist Peso Pluma, who performs in ballistic vests and sings of diamond-encrusted pistols and shipments of cocaine, have introduced the style to international audiences.
The 25-year-old musician, whose title interprets to “Featherweight,” was the seventh most streamed artist on this planet on Spotify final 12 months. In 2023, former President Obama included in his prime 10 songs of the 12 months a Peso Pluma tune that doesn’t contact on drug trafficking.
Musicians devoted to the style have lengthy confronted backlash from the federal government, which because the Eighties has tried, at varied instances, to ban the music.
However the long-standing controversy exploded again into public life this 12 months after a live performance in Michoacan state by the band Los Alegres del Barranco, which displayed photographs of Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, higher generally known as El Mencho, who heads the Jalisco New Era Cartel. The band performed at a venue not removed from a ugly cartel coaching camp that authorities had simply found.
The live performance outraged many Mexicans, and Michoacan Gov. Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla quickly introduced a ban on public performances that glorify crime and violence. That was adopted by related measures in different states, together with Aguascalientes, Queretaro and Mexico state.
A performer performs his guitar with a beer bottle at Los Guitarrazos, a Mexico Metropolis occasion that includes artists enjoying the northern Mexican style corridos.
Days later, the Trump administration introduced it was revoking the U.S. visas of the members of Los Alegres del Barranco.
“The last thing we need is a welcome mat for people who extol criminals and terrorists,” Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau mentioned on X.
I’m a agency believer in freedom of expression, however that doesn’t imply that expression needs to be freed from penalties. A Mexican band, “Los Alegres del Barranco,” portrayed photographs glorifying drug kingpin “El Mencho” — head of the grotesquely violent CJNG cartel — at a current live performance… pic.twitter.com/neSIib7EC4
— Deputy Secretary Christopher Landau (@DeputySecState) April 2, 2025
President Claudia Sheinbaum says she doesn’t assist the bans, but additionally doesn’t assist the music. She not too long ago introduced a nationwide tune competitors for compositions about topics apart from drug trafficking.
“More than banning, it’s about educating, guiding, and getting young people to stop listening to that music,” she mentioned.
However the bans have momentum — a current ballot discovered that 62% of these surveyed assist prohibitions on narcocorridos — they usually have put the style’s stars in a tough place. Their followers demand they play their hits, however doing so is more and more dangerous.
Performing in one of many states that had banned the songs final month, artist Luis R. Conríquez refused to play his ballads that romanticize drug traffickers.
Viewers members had been enraged, forcing him off stage as they flung insults, beer bottles and chairs, and later destroyed his band’s devices.
A singer performs at Los Guitarrazos, an occasion that includes artists enjoying the northern Mexican style corridos, on Tuesday, Could 6, 2025 in Mexico Metropolis, Mexico.
Others musicians, comparable to corridos tumbados star Natanael Cano, have pressed on regardless of the bans.
The 24-year-old carried out at an annual truthful in Aguascalientes state this month simply days after the native authorities warned musicians to not play narco songs.
He started his set with songs from his repertoire that contact on love and different topics. However quickly followers had been pleading for fashionable songs comparable to “Cuerno azulado,” which talks about blue-tinted AK-47s and pacts between drug traffickers and the federal government.
Cano first informed viewers members they need to press their leaders to roll again the bans.
“You have to ask your government,” Cano mentioned. “Don’t come here asking me for it.”
Viewers members at a membership in Mexico Metropolis the place musicians carried out narcocorridos, a style many states are attempting to outlaw.
However finally he acquiesced, enjoying a tune referred to as “Pacas de Billete,” or “stacks of cash,” which alludes to “El Chapo,” the Sinaloa drug cartel kingpin Joaquín Guzmán. After the occasion’s organizers lower the sound, Cano’s group activated their very own audio system. Finally, although, the lights had been turned out and the artist left the stage and headed on to the airport. Native authorities haven’t pressed fees towards him.
A couple of years in the past, Cano was slapped with a $50,000 nice for performing narcocorridos in Chihuahua, one of many first states to enact a ban.
Los Alegres del Barranco, the band that flashed an image of El Mencho in Michoacan, has tried to skirt the legal guidelines in current days with karaoke occasions wherein they play the music however mission lyrics for the viewers to sing.
For a lot of stars, the larger risk could also be organized crime itself. Drug traffickers usually pay to be featured in songs — Peso Pluma has acknowledged taking cash from them — and dozens of the style’s stars have been killed through the years, typically by rivals of the hit males and drug sellers they’ve portrayed. Peso Pluma canceled an look in Tijuana final 12 months after he acquired demise threats.
Those that assist the bans say they’re essential to maintain the following era of younger individuals from romanticizing violence, and to honor those that have misplaced family members to bloodshed.
However for the style’s devotees, the bans smack of classicism.
A musician performs the double bass.
1. An viewers member information the musicians play. 2. An viewers member wears a diamond chain bracelet.
It’s a double customary, mentioned a musician named Rosul, who usually performs narcocorridos and who attended the energetic occasion in Mexico Metropolis final week.
“Netflix can release a series about drug traffickers and win awards and get applause,” she mentioned. “But if somebody from the ‘hood sings about the same thing, it’s an apology for violence?”
Banning the style, she mentioned, is a dropping battle. Younger individuals, in spite of everything, hate being informed what to do.
“This only makes it more appealing,” she mentioned. “This will only make us stronger.”
Occasions particular correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.
