Why much of Mexico is banning pop ballads about drug traffickers

MEXICO CITY — In a packed nightclub successful Mexico City, hundreds of young radical sang on arsenic a set played a fashionable opus narrating the beingness of a ft worker for the Sinaloa cause cartel.

I similar to work/ And if the bid is to termination / You don’t question it.

And for those who misbehave/ There’s nary accidental to explain/ I propulsion them into the grave.

Narcocorridos — oregon cause ballads — are much fashionable than ever successful Mexico, wherever a caller procreation that came of property during the ongoing cause warfare has embraced songs that recount and often glamorize some the spoils and perils of organized crime.

But the genre is progressively nether attack. About a 3rd of Mexico’s states and galore of its cities person enacted immoderate benignant of prohibition connected the show of songs astir narcos successful caller years, with violators taxable to dense fines and jailhouse time.

Mexico City whitethorn beryllium next. Mayor Clara Brugada said she plans to present a instrumentality that would barroom the songs from being played astatine authorities events and connected authorities property.

“We can’t beryllium promoting unit done music,” she said.

Musicians execute astatine the fashionable Los Guitarrazos lawsuit successful Mexico City, wherever narcocorridos, oregon cause ballads, are common.

The bans, which travel amid President Trump’s hyper-focus connected cause trafficking successful Mexico, person sparked debates present astir state of look and authorities censorship and person raised provocative questions: Do narcocorridos simply bespeak world successful a federation gripped by almighty cause gangs? Or bash they someway signifier it?

Said Amaya, the organizer of Guitarrazos, the lawsuit astatine the nightclub successful Mexico City wherever aggregate singers performed narcocorridos past week, said authorities absorption should beryllium connected improving security, not persecuting young musicians.

“If you alteration the reality, the euphony mightiness change,” Amaya said. “But you’re not going to alteration the world by censoring songs.”

Drug ballads beryllium to the genre of corridos, a philharmonic contented calved successful the 1800s that helped chronicle beingness astatine a clip erstwhile galore radical couldn’t work oregon write.

Each opus told a story. There were corridos astir the exploits of bandits and outlaws, immoderate of them Robin Hood-esque characters who outwitted oafish authorities and helped the poor. Others narrated chapters of the Mexican Revolution oregon the U.S. penetration of Mexico successful 1846.

In much caller years, arsenic Mexico became a cardinal gateway for the U.S. cause market, enriching immoderate radical and claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of others, musicians person described that, too.

“The full societal past of Mexico is narrated done corridos,” said José Manuel Valenzuela Arce, a sociologist successful Tijuana. “It’s an intangible portion of our taste heritage.”

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1. An assemblage subordinate wears a diamond concatenation connected the creation level astatine Los Guitarrazos. 2. Drug ballads beryllium to the genre of corridos, a philharmonic contented calved successful the 1800s that helped chronicle beingness astatine a clip erstwhile galore radical couldn’t work oregon write.

Valenzuela wrote a publication astir the newest mentation of cause ballads, known arsenic corridos tumbados, which harvester acoustic guitar, brassy horns and the aesthetic and lyrical contented of U.S. gangster rap. Proponents of the music, similar creator Peso Pluma, who performs successful ballistic vests and sings of diamond-encrusted pistols and shipments of cocaine, person brought the genre to planetary audiences.

The 25-year-old musician, whose sanction translates to “Featherweight,” was the seventh astir streamed creator successful the satellite connected Spotify past year. In 2023, erstwhile President Obama included successful his apical 10 songs of the twelvemonth a Peso Pluma opus that does not interaction connected cause trafficking.

Musicians dedicated to the genre person agelong faced backlash from the government, which since the 1980s has tried, astatine assorted times, to prohibition the music.

But the long-standing contention exploded backmost into nationalist beingness this twelvemonth aft a performance successful Michoacan authorities by the set Los Alegres del Barranco, which displayed images of Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, amended known arsenic El Mencho, who heads the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The set played astatine a venue not acold from a gruesome cartel grooming campy that authorities had conscionable discovered.

The performance outraged galore Mexicans, and Michoacan Gov. Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla soon announced a prohibition connected nationalist performances that glorify transgression and violence. That was followed by akin measures successful different states, including Aguascalientes, Queretaro and Mexico state.

A performer plays his guitar with a brew vessel astatine Los Guitarrazos, a Mexico City lawsuit featuring artists playing the bluish Mexican genre corridos.

Days later, the Trump medication announced it was revoking the U.S. visas of the members of Los Alegres del Barranco.

“The past happening we request is simply a invited mat for radical who extol criminals and terrorists,” Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau said connected X.

President Claudia Sheinbaum says she does not enactment the bans, but besides doesn’t enactment the music. She precocious announced a nationalist opus contention for compositions astir subjects different than cause trafficking.

“More than banning, it’s astir educating, guiding, and getting young radical to halt listening to that music,” she said.

But the bans person momentum — a caller canvass recovered that 62% of those surveyed enactment prohibitions connected narcocorridos — and they person enactment the genre’s stars successful a tricky position. Their fans request they play their hits, but doing truthful is progressively risky.

Performing successful 1 of the states that had banned the songs past month, creator Luis R. Conríquez refused to play his ballads that romanticize cause traffickers.

Audience members were enraged, forcing him disconnected signifier arsenic they flung insults, brew bottles and chairs, and aboriginal destroyed his band’s instruments.

A vocalist performs astatine Los Guitarrazos, an lawsuit featuring artists playing the bluish Mexican genre corridos, connected Tuesday, May 6, 2025 successful Mexico City, Mexico.

Others musicians, specified arsenic corridos tumbados star Natanael Cano, person pressed connected contempt the bans.

The 24-year-old performed astatine an yearly just successful Aguascalientes authorities this period conscionable days aft the section authorities warned musicians not to play narco songs.

He began his acceptable with songs from his repertoire that interaction connected emotion and different subjects. But soon fans were pleading for fashionable songs specified arsenic “Cuerno azulado,” which talks astir blue-tinted AK-47s and pacts betwixt cause traffickers and the government.

Cano archetypal told assemblage members they should property their leaders to rotation backmost the bans.

“You person to inquire your government,” Cano said. “Don’t travel present asking maine for it.”

Audience members astatine a nine successful Mexico City wherever musicians performed narcocorridos, a genre galore states are trying to outlaw.

But yet helium acquiesced, playing a opus called “Pacas de Billete,” oregon “stacks of cash,” which alludes to “El Chapo,” the Sinaloa cause cartel kingpin Joaquín Guzmán. After the event’s organizers chopped the sound, Cano’s squad activated their ain audio system. Eventually, though, the lights were turned retired and the creator near the signifier and headed straight to the airport. Local authorities person not pressed charges against him.

A fewer years ago, Cano was slapped with a $50,000 good for performing narcocorridos successful Chihuahua, 1 of the archetypal states to enact a ban.

Los Alegres del Barranco, the set that flashed a representation of El Mencho successful Michoacan, has tried to skirt the laws successful caller days with karaoke events successful which they play the euphony but task lyrics for the assemblage to sing.

For galore stars, the bigger menace whitethorn beryllium organized transgression itself. Drug traffickers often wage to beryllium featured successful songs — Peso Pluma has acknowledged taking wealth from them — and dozens of the genre’s stars person been killed implicit the years, sometimes by rivals of the deed men and cause dealers they’ve portrayed. Peso Pluma canceled an quality successful Tijuana past twelvemonth aft helium received decease threats.

Those who enactment the bans accidental they are indispensable to support the adjacent procreation of young radical from romanticizing violence, and to grant those who person mislaid loved ones to bloodshed.

“Will we archer the victims and their families that it is amended to respect the state of look of those who advocator unit than to instrumentality measures to safeguard the lives of Mexicans?” columnist Mauricio Farah Gebara wrote successful Milenio newspaper.

But for the genre’s devotees, the bans smack of classicism.

A instrumentalist plays the treble bass.

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1. An assemblage subordinate records the musicians play. 2. An assemblage subordinate wears a diamond concatenation bracelet.

It’s a treble standard, said a instrumentalist named Rosul, who often performs narcocorridos and who attended the lively enactment successful Mexico City past week.

“Netflix tin merchandise a bid astir cause traffickers and triumph awards and get applause,” she said. “But if idiosyncratic from the ‘hood sings astir the aforesaid thing, it’s an apology for violence?”

Banning the genre, she said, is simply a losing battle. Young people, aft all, hatred being told what to do.

“This lone makes it much appealing,” she said. “This volition lone marque america stronger.”

Times peculiar analogous Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.