Mexico City – In a full nightclub in Mexico City, hundreds of young people sang as a band played a popular song that narrated the life of a foot soldier for the Sinaloa drug poster.
I like working / and if the order is to kill / do not question it.
And for those who behave badly/ there is no possibility to explain them/ throw them into the grave.
Narcocorridos, or drug ballads, are more popular than ever in Mexico, where a new generation that reached the age of majority during the current drug war has adopted songs that are often glamorized both the loot and the dangers of organized crime.
But the genre is increasingly under attack. Around a third of the states of Mexico and many of its cities have promulgated some kind of prohibition of the interpretation of songs about drug traffickers in recent years, with offenders subject to strong fines and time in jail.
Mexico City can be next. Mayor Clara Brugada said he plans to present a law that would prevent the songs that are reproduced in government events and government properties.
“We cannot promote violence through music,” he said.
Musicians act in the popular guitar event in Mexico City, where drugs or drug ballads are common.
The prohibitions, which are produced in the midst of the Hyper-Enfo of President Trump about drug trafficking in Mexico, have caused debates here about the freedom of expression and censorship of the State and have raised provocative questions: Do narcos simply reflect reality in a nation trapped by powerful drug gangs? Or somehow they shape it?
Amaya said, the guitar organizer, the event in the nightclub in Mexico City, where multiple singers performed narcocorridos last week, said the government approach should be to improve security, not chase young musicians.
“If you change reality, music could change,” said Amaya. “But you are not going to change reality censuring songs.”
Drug ballads belong to the genre of runs, a musical tradition born in the nineteenth century that helped to tell life at a time when many people could not read or write.
Each song told a story. There were runs on the exploits of the bandits and outlaws, some of them characters in the style Robin Hood that mocked Oafish authorities and helped the poor. Others narrated the chapters of the Mexican Revolution or the invasion of Mexico of the United States in 1846.
In recent years, when Mexico became a key entrance door for the United States drug market, enriching some people and claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of others, musicians have also described it.
“All the social history of Mexico is narrated through corridos,” said José Manuel Valenzuela Arce, a sociologist of Tijuana. “It is an intangible part of our cultural heritage.”
1. A audience member uses a diamond chain on the dance floor on the guitar. 2. Drug ballads belong to the genre of runs, a musical tradition born in the nineteenth century that helped to tell life at a time when many people could not read or write.
Valenzuela wrote a book about the most recent version of drug ballads, known as Corridos lyingthat combine the acoustic guitar, brass horns and the aesthetic and lyrical content of gangsters rap. The proponents of music, such as the artist weight pen, which occurs in ballistic vests and sings gun with diamonds and cocaine shipments, have taken the genre to the global public.
Mexican star weight weight.
(Intuit dome)
The 25 -year -old musician, whose name translates into “pen weight”, was the seventh most transmitted artist in the world in Spotify last year. In 2023, former President Obama included in his 10 best songs of the year a pen weight that does not play drug trafficking.
Musicians dedicated to gender have faced a violent reaction from the government, which since the 1980s has tried, at various times, prohibit music.
But the long controversy exploded in public life this year after a concert in the state of Michoacán by the band Los Alegres del Barranco, which showed images of Nemesio Rubéneguera Cervantes, better known as El Mencho, headed by the poster of the new generation of Jalisco. The band played in a place not far from a horrible poster training field that the authorities had just discovered.
The concert outraged many Mexicans, and the governor of Michoacán, Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla, soon announced a prohibition of public presentations that glorify crime and violence. That was followed by similar measures in other states, including Aguascalientes, what theret and State of Mexico.
An interpreter plays his guitar with a bottle of beer on the guitar, an event from Mexico City with artists who play the genre of the North Mexican Corridos.
Days later, the Trump administration announced that it revoked the visas of the members of the members of the joyful of the ravine.
“The last thing we need is a welcome carpet for people who extol criminals and terrorists,” said State Secretary Chris Landau in X.
President Claudia Sheinbaum says she does not support prohibitions, but that she does not support music either. Recently announced a national competition of songs for compositions on different topics of drug trafficking.
“More than prohibiting, it's about educating, guiding and getting young people to stop listening to that music,” he said.
But the prohibitions have an impulse, a recent survey found that 62% of respondents support narcocorridos prohibitions, and have put the stars of the genre in a difficult position. His fans demand that they play their successes, but doing so is increasingly risky.
Luis R Conríquez lives in concert during the Belikin 2023 tour at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Friday, February 17, 2023. (James Carbone photo)
(James Carbone)
Acting in one of the states that the songs had prohibited last month, the artist Luis R. Conríquez refused to play his ballads that romantize drug traffickers.
The members of the audience were enraged, forcing him to leave the stage while throwing insults, beer bottles and chairs, and then destroyed the instruments of his band.
A singer acts on the guitarzos, an event that presents artists who interpret the genre of the North Mexican Corridos, on Tuesday, May 6, 2025 in Mexico City, Mexico.
Mexican singer Natanael Cano performs
In Mexico City in 2023.
(Fernando Llano / Associated Press)
Other musicians, such as Corridos lying The Natanael Cano star has been pressed despite the prohibitions.
The 24 -year -old acted at an annual fair in the state of Aguascalientes this month a few days after local authorities warned musicians who do not play Narco songs.
He began his set with songs from his repertoire that play love and other songs. But soon fans supplied popular songs such as “Bluish horn”, which talks about AK-47 and pacts with blue dye between drug traffickers and the government.
Cano said for the first time to the members of the audience that they should press their leaders to reverse the prohibitions.
“You have to ask your government,” Cano said. “Don't come here asking me.”
Members of the audience in a club in Mexico City where musicians interpreted narcocorridos, a genre that many states are trying to ban.
But finally he accepted, playing a song called “Ballet Pacas” or “Stacks of Cash”, which alludes to “El Chapo”, the Sinaloa Drug Cartel Kingpin Joaquín Guzmán. After the organizers of the event cut the sound, Cano's team activated their own audio system. Eventually, however, the lights were expelled and the artist left the stage and went directly to the airport. Local authorities have not pressed charges against him.
A few years ago, Cano received a fine of $ 50,000 for making narcocorridos in Chihuahua, one of the first states to promulgate a prohibition.
The cheerful of the ravine, the band that showed a photo of El Mencho in Michoacan, has tried to avoid laws in recent days with karaoke events in which they play music but project lyrics of the audience to sing.
For many stars, the greatest threat can be organized crime itself. Drug traffickers often pay to appear in songs, weight weight has acknowledged taking money from them, and dozens of genre stars have been killed over the years, sometimes by rivals of the milestones and drug traffickers they have portrayed. Weight pen canceled an appearance in Tijuana last year after receiving death threats.
Those who support prohibitions say they are necessary to avoid that the next generation of young people romantic violence and honor those who have lost their loved ones for bloodshed.
“Will we 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 lives of Mexicans?” Columnist Mauricio Farah Gebara wrote in the millennium newspaper.
But for the devotees of the genre, the prohibitions of classism.
A musician touches the double bass.
1. A audience member records the musicians playing. 2. A audience member uses a diamond chain bracelet.
It is a double standard, a musician named Rosul said, who often performs narcocorridos and attended the animated party in Mexico City last week.
“Netflix can launch a series about drug traffickers and win awards and get applause,” he said. “But if someone from the bell sings the same, is it an apology for violence?”
Prohibiting gender, he said, is a lost battle. Young people, after all, hate to tell them what to do.
“This only makes it more attractive,” he said. “This will only make us stronger.”
Times the special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.
