Narcocorrido

A narcocorrido or drug ballad is a Mexican music and song tradition which evolved out of the norteño folk corrido tradition. It uses a danceable, accordion-based polka as a rhythmic base. Corridos have long described the poor and destitute, bandits and other criminals, as well as illegal immigrants to the United States. The first corridos that focus on drug smugglers—the narco comes from "narcotics"—have been dated to the 1930’s. ^[1]

Narcocorrido lyrics refer to particular events and include real dates and places ^[2]. The lyrics tend to speak approvingly of the criminal activities.

Among the earliest exponents of narcocorrido music were Los Alegres de Teran, who recorded many songs during the 1950s and 1960s about "contrabandistas" or smugglers of contraband. Although most of the smuggling mentioned by Los Alegres did involve illegal narcotic drugs, this pioneering musical duo also sang about a shipment of contraband cinnamon, "La Canela," which was smuggled across across the border in an attempt to evade customs taxes. Their best-known narcocorrido remains "El Contrabando del Paso."

In the 1970s the band Los Tigres del Norte became well-known exponents of the narcocorrido. Their earliest hits popularized the style, starting off with their first song, "Contrabando y Traicion" ("Contraband and Betrayal"), and with such continuations like "Los Tres Gallos" (The Three Roosters; alternative title: Three Best Friends), "La Camioneta Gris" ("The Gray Pick-Up"), and "La Mafia Muere" ("The Mob Dies").

In the 1980s, Rosalino "Chalino" Sanchez took up the composition of narcocorridos. Known throughout Mexico as "El Pelavacas" (Cow Skin Peeler), El Indio (The Indian, from his corrido "El Indio Sanchez"), and "Mi Compa" (My Friend), Sanchez was a Mexican immigrant living in Los Angeles. He created a business writing corridos about people he met in the cantinas and swap meets of immigrant Los Angeles -- many of whom were from the drug-drenched regions of northwest Mexico. Setting these stories to music, he put them on cassettes and soon was selling thousands of copies in and around Los Angeles. Chalino Sanchez was murdered in 1992 after a concert in Culiacán, Sinaloa. He was only 31 years old. In death, he became a legend and one of the most influential musicians to emerge from Los Angeles in the last quarter century. His death sparked a boom in narcocorridos and the rise of dozens of imitators, sometimes known as Chalinillos (Little Chalinos). ^[3]

From the 1990s through the early 2000s, the number of bands that played narcocorridos increased dramatically. Among the most popular groups that performed such songs were Los Huracanes del Norte, Los Inquietos Del Norte, Los Morros Del Norte, Los Tucanes de Tijuana, Los Amos De Nuevo Leon, Los Cuates De Sinaloa, El Potro de Sinaloa, Los Originales de San Juan, Grupo Exterminador, Banda Novedad Show, Tigrillo Palma, Beto Quintanilla, Los Canelos de Durango, Larry Hernandez, Roberto Tapia, Los Buitres de Culiacan, El Comander, Los Razos de Reynaldo, Banda Nueva Clave De Oro, Colmillo Norteño, Fuerza Norteña, Revolucion Norteña, Explosion Norteña, El Gavilancillo, Jorge Gamboa, La Nueva Rebelion, Los Incomparables De Tijuana, and Los Nuevos Rebeldes. For some of these groups, the narcocorrido was only one of many song styles utilized; others specialized in narcocorridos almost exclusively.

Various companies, governmental agencies, and individuals have sought to ban narcocorridos. These attempts include a voluntary radio station black-out in Baja California. Representative Casio Carlos Narváez explained that radio executives did not want to make "people who break the laws of our country into heroes and examples". Former President of Mexico Vicente Fox also proposed banning narcocorridos. ^[4]

Violence in narcocorrido industry

Between 2006 and 2008, over a dozen prominent Mexican musicians, many of them connected to the narcocorrido genre, were murdered.^[5] The violence came in the midst of the Mexican drug war. The most popular musicians killed were Valentín Elizalde and Sergio Gomez, the lead singer of Chicago-based Duranguense band K-Paz de la Sierra. In December 2007, both men were nominated posthumously for Grammy Awards in the banda category.^[6]

Other murdered music industry figures included Javier Morales Gomez, singer for Los Implacables del Norte, four members of Tecno Banda Fugaz, four members of Los Padrinos de la Sierra, Zayda Peña, singer for Zayda y Los Culpables, Jose Luis Aquino of Los Conde, trumpeter Jose Luis Aquino, record producer Marco Abdala, manager Roberto del Fierro Lugo, Jorge Antonio Sepulveda, Jesus Rey David Alfaro Pulido, Nicolas Villanueva of tropical group Brisas del Mar, and four members of Los Herederos de Sinaloa. Additionally, three members of Explosion Norteña were shot and wounded in Tijuana in August 2006.

While few if any arrests have been made in these cases, experts and musicians themselves say that the murders can be explained by many Mexican musicians’ proximity to drug traffickers.^[7] Some speculate the killings could be related to romantic disputes and jealousy.^[8] Others cite cases in which a musician writes a song praising or criticizing a drug trafficker. Many assert that Valentín Elizalde’s murder, for example, was related to a song of his, “A Mis Enemigos,” which some interpreted as an attack on the Gulf Cartel following its appearance in a widespread YouTube video.^[9]

There has been debate over the motives behind the killings and over to whether the media has exaggerated the trend. Narcocorrido expert Elijah Wald has disputed the assumption that any of the murders were related or that musicians on the whole are targets for drug traffickers.^[10] But given the grisly nature of the murders, some of which were accompanied by torture and disfigurement, few doubt that drug cartel hitmen are to blame.

In the wake of the high-profile murders of Elizalde and Gomez, among others, some prominent corrido musicians postponed concert dates in certain parts of Mexico.^[11] Others have said they are afraid to sing narcocorridos in public for fear of offending the wrong person.^[12] Likewise, some vendors of narcocorrido CDs have reported low sales, citing fear among listeners of buying a CD featuring songs favoring one group of traffickers over another. ^[13]

In the media

In the third season of The Shield, the episode entitled "Safe", a narcocorrido is found. It was a song about an unrequited love, and the man killed her. However, Several bodies are found, from meth lab exposure. Later evidence proves that she is alive and living with the boyfriend, so the narcocorrido turned out to be fake. The detectives use the corridors albums to close cases from stories that are true.

The second season episode, Negro Y Azul of Breaking Bad opens with a narcocorrido about events within the show's story played by Los Cuates de Sinaloa.

Films

• 2006 - Al Otro Lado (dir. Natalia Almada)

Academic articles and books

Astorga, Luis: Mitología del traficante en México. México: UNAM / Plaza y Valdés, 1995.

Edberg, Mark Cameron. "El Narcotraficante: Narcocorridos & The Construction of a Cultural Persona on the U.S.-Mexican Border." Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004.

Flores y Escalante, Jesús. “El narcocorrido: Tradición sin tiempo ni frontera.” Somos. (Número dedicado a Los Tigres del Norte). 13.228 (febrero 2003): 72-79.

Herrera-Sobek, María. “The Theme of Smuggling in the Mexican Corrido.” Revista Chicano Riqueña. 1979:7 No. 4: 4961.

Quinones, Sam. True Tales from Another Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New México Press, 2001.

Ramírez-Pimienta, Juan Carlos. “Del corrido de narcotráfico al narcocorrido: Orígenes y desarrollo del canto a los traficantes.” Studies in Latin American Popular Culture. Special issue on border culture. XXIII (2004):21-41.

Ramírez-Pimienta, Juan Carlos y José Villalobos. “Corridos and la pura verdad: Myths and Realities of the Mexican Ballad,”. The South Central Review. Special issue “Memory and Nation in Contemporary Mexico”. 21.3 (Fall 2004):129-149.

Ramírez-Pimienta, Juan Carlos. “Búsquenme en el Internet: Características del narcocorrido finisecular.” Ciberletras # 11. Special issue “End of 20th Century Mexican Literature”. (July, 2004)

Ramírez-Pimienta, Juan Carlos. "El corrido de narcotráfico en los años ochenta y noventa: un juicio moral suspendido". The Bilingual Review/ La Revista Bilingüe. XXIII.2 (May-August 1998): 145-156.

Simonett, Helena. “Narcocorridos: An Emerging Micromusic of Nuevo L.A.” Ethnomusicology. 45.2 (Spring/Summer 2001): 315-337.

Wald, Elijah. Narcocorrido: Un viaje al mundo de la música de las drogas, armas, y guerrilleros. Nueva York: Rayo, 2001

Wellinga, Klaas. “Cantando a los traficantes.”Foro Hispánico: Revista Hispánica de los Países Bajos, 22 (2002): 137-54.

References

www.narcocorridos.net

External links

• http://www.narcocorridos.net/
• Corridos -
• True Tales From Another Mexico: the Lynch Mob, the Popsicle Kings, Chalino and the Bronx by journalist Sam Quinones, includes the story of narcocorrido legend Chalino Sanchez.
• Narcocorrido, a book about the history of this style, including interviews with most of the foremost composers.
• Timeline of narcocorrido censorship attempts
• BBC article on Narcocorrido
• Compiled media reference file on Los Tucanes de Tijuana
• New Yorker article on the new narcocultura
• Mexico: Trouble in Culiacán, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting