Mexico – In a crowded nightclub in Mexico City, hundreds of young people sang while a group played a popular song telling the life of a soldier for the Sinaloa drug cartel.
I like to work / and if the order is to kill / you do not question it.
And for those who behave badly / There is no chance of explaining / I throw them into the grave.
Narcocorridos – or drug ballads – are more popular than ever in Mexico, where a new generation that has become major during the current drug war kissed songs that often tell and glamorous both booty and the perils of organized crime.
But the genre is more and more attacked. About a third of the States of Mexico and several of its cities have promulgated a kind of ban on the performance of songs over the Narcos in recent years, with offenders subject to heavy fines and prison terms.
Mexico City can be next. Mayor Clara Brugada said she was planning to present a law that would prevent songs from being played during government events and government property.
“We cannot promote violence by music,” she said.
The musicians occur during the popular Los Guitarrazos event in Mexico City, where the narcocorridos, or drug walks, are common.
The prohibitions, which come in the middle of President Trump Hyper to point on drug trafficking In Mexico, have triggered debates here on freedom of expression and state censorship and have raised provocative questions: do narcocorridos simply reflect reality in a nation seized by powerful drug gangs? Or do they shape it in a way?
Said Amaya, the organizer of Guitarrazos, the nightclub event in Mexico City where several singers interpreted Narcocorridos last week, said the government should be to improve security, not to persecute young musicians.
“If you change reality, music could change,” said Amaya. “But you are not going to change reality by censoring songs.”
Drug ballads belong to the kind of Corridos, a musical tradition born in the 1800s which helped to colline life at a time when many people could not read or write.
Each song told a story. There were corridos on the exploits of bandits and outlaws, some of which Robin Hood-Esque who exceeded the authorities of Oafish and helped the poor. Others told chapters of the Mexican Revolution or the American invasion of Mexico in 1846.
In recent years, when Mexico has become a key gateway to the American drug market, enriching certain people and claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of others, the musicians have also described it.
“The whole social history of Mexico is told through corridos,” said José Manuel Valenzuela Arce, sociologist in Tijuana. “It is an intangible part of our cultural heritage.”
1 and 1 A public member carries a chain of diamonds on the Los Guitarrazos dance floor. 2 Drug ballads belong to the kind of Corridos, a musical tradition born in the 1800s which helped to colline life at a time when many people could not read or write.
Valenzuela wrote a book on the latest version of drug ballads, known as Corridos lyingwhich combines the acoustic guitar, the copper horns and the aesthetic and lyrical content of the American gangster rap. Supporters of music, such as the artist Peso Pluma, which occurs in ballistic vests and songs of pistols encrusted with diamonds and cocaine expeditions, led the genre to the global public.
The 25 -year -old musician, whose name is reflected in “featherweight”, was the most broadcast artist in the world on Spotify last year. In 2023, former President Obama included in his 10 best songs of the year a Peso Pluma song which does not touch drug trafficking.
Gender -dedicated musicians have long faced the government's reaction, since the 1980s, has tried, at various times, to ban music.
But the longtime controversy has exploded in public life this year after a concert in the state of Michoacan by the Los Alegres Del Barranco group, which showed images of Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, better known as El Mencho, who directs the cartel of Jalisco New Generation. The group played in a place not far from a horrible cartel training camp that the authorities had just discovered.
The concert has scandalized many Mexicans, and the governor of Michoacan Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla quickly announced a ban on public performance that glorifies crime and violence. This has been followed by similar measures in other states, including Aguascalians, Quéretaro and the State of Mexico.
An artist plays his guitar with a bottle of beer in Los Guitarrazos, a Mexico City event featuring artists playing the north of the Mexican genre Corridos.
A few days later, the Trump administration announced that it revoked the American visas of Los Alegres Del Barranco members.
“The last thing we need is a welcome carpet for people who praise criminals and terrorists,” said Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau said on x.
President Claudia Sheinbaum says she does not support prohibitions, but does not support music either. She recently announced a national song competition for compositions on subjects other than drug trafficking.
“More than the ban, it is a question of educating, guiding and bringing young people to stop listening to this music,” she said.
But prohibitions have momentum – a Recent survey noted that 62% of those questioned support prohibitions on narcocorridos – and they put the stars of the genre in a delicate position. Their fans ask that they play their successes, but that is increasingly risky.
In one of the states that prohibited songs last month, the artist Luis R. Conríquez refused to play his ballads which romanianize drug traffickers.
The members of the public were rabid, forcing him outside the stage when they threw insults, bottles of beer and chairs, and then destroyed the instruments of his group.
A singer performs in Los Guitarrazos, an event featuring artists playing the Mexican genre Corridos, Tuesday May 6, 2025 in Mexico City, Mexico.
Other musicians, such as Corridos lying Star Natanael Cano continued despite the prohibitions.
The 24-year-old played in an annual state of the Aguascalian state this month only a few days after the local authorities warned the musicians not to play Narco songs.
He started his set with songs from his repertoire that affects love and other subjects. But soon the fans pleaded for popular songs such as “Cuerno Azulado”, which speaks of AK-47 and drug pacts to tint with the Blues and to the government.
Cano first told public members that they should press their leaders to withdraw prohibitions.
“You have to ask your government,” Cano said. “Do not come here asking me.
The members of the public of a Mexico club where the musicians interpreted Narcocorridos, a genre that many states are trying out of law.
But finally, he nodded, playing a song entitled “Pacas de Billete” or “Stacks of Cash”, which alludes to “El Chapo», The pingpin of the Sinaloa drug cartel, Joaquín Guzmán. After the organizers of the event cut the sound, the Cano team activated their own audio system. Finally, however, the lights were extinguished and the artist left the scene and headed directly at the airport. Local authorities have not carried its doors against him.
A few years ago, Cano was slapped with a fine of $ 50,000 for having made narcocorridos in Chihuahua, one of the first states to adopt a ban.
Los Alegres del Barranco, the group that flashed from El Mencho to Michoacan, has tried to get around the laws in recent days with karaoke events in which they play music but project words for the public to sing.
For many stars, the biggest threat can be an organized crime itself. Drug traffickers often pay to be presented in songs – Peso Pluma has admitted to take money – and dozens of stars of the genre have been killed over the years, sometimes by rivals of wages and drug traffickers they have represented. Peso Pluma canceled an appearance in Tijuana last year after receiving death threats.
Those who support the prohibitions say they are necessary to prevent the next generation of young people from rotating violence and to honor those who have lost dear beings because of the bloodshed.
“Are we going to tell the victims and their families that it is better to respect the freedom of expression of those who advocate violence than to take measures to safeguard the life of Mexicans?” The columnist Mauricio Farah Gebara wrote in the newspaper Milenio.
But for the faithful of the gender, prohibitions feel classicism.
A musician plays the double bass.
1 and 1 A public member records musicians. 2 A public member wears a diamond chain bracelet.
It is a double standard, said a musician named Rosul, who often performs Narcocorridos and who attended the animated party in Mexico last week.
“Netflix can release a series on drug traffickers and win prizes and get applause,” she said. “But if someone from the Hood sings the same thing, is it excuses for violence?”
Prohibiting gender, she said, is a lost battle. Young people, after all, hate knowing what to do.
“It only makes it more attractive,” she said. “It will only make us stronger.”
The special correspondent of Times Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.
