A Reckoning For Narco Corridos?
Mexico's gangster music faces trouble. What about Disney streaming it?
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Hours before Luis R. Conriquez, a 28-year old Sonoran singer with hundreds of millions of views on YouTube and a Billboard magazine front cover, was to perform at a festival in the Mexican town of Texcoco on Friday, he released a message on social media. “There are people who don’t understand and think that we make the rules but the truth is that there won’t be corridos [ballads] in the events from here onwards,” he wrote. By corridos, he meant specifically narco corridos, or drug ballads, about cartels, cocaine and killers, and their variations such as corridos belicos, or “warlike ballads,” a term Conriquez himself coined.
That night, Conriquez tried to perform in a circle surrounded by seats, a venue style also used for cock fighting. But the crowd booed. Conriquez tried to pacify the drunken revelers but in vain. Members of the audience became more heated and went from lobbing paper beer cups to steaming into the circle and smashing up instruments while Conriquez and his band fled. The demolition was captured on audience members’ cell phone videos, such as this below, which went viral on social media.
The images sparked visceral reactions. Many in Mexico voiced disgust at the drunken destruction and depth of narco influence on the nation’s culture. “Look at the barbarity,” anchor Francisco Zea said on Imagen radio. “They broke the instruments. They broke the screens surrounding the venue. Truly, a bunch of Neanderthals.” Some MAGA-style accounts on X took digs at Mexican immigration. Other voices hit back at the homegrown gangster culture in the United States and U.S. companies cashing in on narco corridos (including Disney, as I will get into).
The incident is linked to a bigger backlash to corridos on both sides of the border. Several Mexican states have introduced fines and even prison threats to bands who play what they call “apologías,” which could be translated as a justification or glorification, of violent criminals. The United States cancelled the visa of one band, citing the designation of cartels as terrorists, and there are reports it will go after others or hit their labels. Conriquez cited a local law as a reason to cancel his corridos, but the threat of taking away his visa to the United States, where he makes a fortune from concerts, could be a bigger incentive. Has a reckoning for narco corridos finally arrived?
I have conflicted feelings on narco culture as I write here. I enjoy songs and movies about gangsters, from the Godfather to NWA to Tucanes de Tijuana and I’m against censoring art. I also respect how corridos are part of a genuine working class Mexican culture on both sides of the border, and the same singers have tunes about love and the migrant experience. And it can be lively and soulful music.
Yet I can’t pretend that narco culture isn’t a factor in normalizing how young men and women are recruited as cartel killers or as mules walking fentanyl through customs. And the stars don’t just sing about violence in general but about specific cartel operatives, who can pay them for tunes or hire them to play at their parties. Conriquez did a song celebrating Perris, a security head of the Chapitos now involved in the catastrophic war in Sinaloa.
The showdown comes as narco corridos are more popular than ever and are making cash for corporations. The genre was pioneered by artists such as the Sinaloan Chalino Sánchez, who began selling cassettes out the boot of his car in L.A. swap meets. But now it’s big business. Conriquez went from working at a gas station to being part of a new generation making hits with gargantuan streaming numbers; his song “Si No Quieres No” has 446 million views on YouTube. His label Kartel was founded by the sons of agricultural workers in Santa Maria, California but its artists can now pack venues the length and breadth of America, thanks in a big part to Mexican immigration. I have been to the HQ of another corridos label in Los Angeles and its profits were reflected in an incredible collection of classic cars and even boats on display.
Peso Pluma is the biggest star of all (No. 78 worldwide on Spotify as of publishing) mixing corridos with a U.S. urban touch into a style called corridos tumbados. Yet he has explicit narco tunes and his hit “El Belicon” (327 million views) is said to be about El Nini, another Chapitos paramilitary leader; the song’s video was even reported to be filmed in one of Nini’s houses. This didn’t stop Yves Saint Laurent making Peso Pluma an ambassador for a perfume. And Disney, while putting a trigger warning on Peter Pan…
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