“They left San Isidro/coming from Tijuana/they brought the car tires/full of weeds,” this is how Contrabando y Betrayal, one of the best-known songs by Los Tigres del Norte and probably the first corrido about the drug trafficking that the Hernández brothers sang back in 1972, making them references of the genre from then until today, weeks before visiting Barcelona (Auditori del Fòrum, April 7, within the GuitarBCN festival) 14 years after their last performance in Spain.
“We owe a lot to Spain and its public, very knowledgeable about the narcocorridos and political corridos of our Mexico,” celebrates Luis Hernández, bassist and the youngest of the felines (49 years old), while speaking by videoconference from his home in San Joseph, California. The Sinaloa band has become the main global exporter of northern music with more than 30 million records sold and 10 million listeners on Spotify. Spearhead of a genre galvanized in recent years by bands of the so-called corridos tumbados such as Peso Pluma, responsible for adding elements of urban music to a tradition that takes deep roots in Mexican culture until reaching medieval Castilian romances.
“The problem of drug trafficking has been experienced for years in our country, we would like it not to be like that but we are narrators of the stories that our people live every day.” Hernández refers to songs such as La banda del carro rojo, Jefe de Jefes or La Reina del Sur, based on the character that Arturo Pérez-Reverte created from the narco Camelia la Tejana. They are the most anticipated tunes by the Tigres public at their concerts, although they have not been able to sing them for years in states like Chihuahua, where narcocorridos are banned for spreading a social, economic and cultural model linked to drug trafficking against which the Mexican state is up in arms. “The nickname of precursors of the narcocorrido always puts you there, but we have tried to take this music to another level, to make it dignified.”
“Los Tigres del Norte are the architects of the renaissance of the genre in the 70s,” says Juan Carlos Rodríguez-Pimienta, author of the book Cantar a los narcos. “They cook separately, they do not make private presentations for anyone, but they have always distanced themselves or approached the narcocorrido depending on the context, they move away when it suits them but then they return reminding us that they are the fathers of the narcocorrido.” The professor from the University of San Diego has researched the genre until locating the first recordings in the late 1920s, “it is a border, binational product, the first songs spoke of the act of smuggling between Texas and Nuevo León or Tamaulipas,” for It is not surprising that Los Angeles is the capital of the narcocorrido.
“The corridos are very important because in Latin America culture has always been exclusive, since the time of the conquest and also in the Republic,” points out the writer Sergio Álvarez, author of novels such as 35 Muertos or Singing is Surviving where he delves into Colombia plagued by drug trafficking. “Culture has been separated between popular and high culture of Western origin to maintain the status of the elites,” a dichotomy where the corrido takes on the vindicating role of popular singing, “a way of saying that we can also tell our stories.” , we have already invented a genre to do it.”
The tradition of the corrido dates back to the independence wars of the 19th century, where the exploits of bandits were sung, and has continued throughout the 20th century until reaching the drug trafficking conflict at the end of the 90s. This is how narcocorridos appeared, a nickname that was born as “another way for the elite to try to exclude this music, to say that this is not music nor is it part of Mexican culture.” Previously they were known as corridos de traficantes or drug trafficking, but in the 90s the prefix narco began to be used, “we began to hear it for different activities, including religious activities such as narco-alms,” adds Professor Ramírez-Pimienta.
The first corridos about drug trafficking were recorded in the early 1930s, it was then that José Rosales sang El Pablote, dedicated to Pablo González, The King of Morphine, and are linked to the corridos of illegal migration, a practice that facilitated the drug traffic; “It is very easy for a Mexican who goes to seek a life in the United States to carry a kilo of coca at once,” says Sergio Álvarez. In the 70s, bands like the Tigres del Norte referred to drug trafficking in an anonymous and veiled way, but two decades later artists like Grupo Exterminador unmasked the lyrics, with explicit references to drug trafficking, shootings and big bosses like in La Cruz. of marijuana or kilo bales.
A transformation where the figure of the Sinaloan coyote Chalino Sánchez stands out, a trafficker of illegal immigrants along the northern border who achieved success when his songs reached the radio stations of southern California in the late 80s, singing to the fruitful “snows” of January that give rise to the “flowers of May”. His brief career ended in 1992 when he was murdered in Culiacán at the age of 31 under strange circumstances, which gave rise to a legend enhanced by stories such as the attack he suffered in the middle of a concert at Coachella, when a man in the audience shot him and Sánchez. He responded by drawing his pistol to shoot the attacker.
“The difference with current artists is that we do not want to imitate the characters,” highlights Luis Hernández. Today, however, “they are very close to the characters they play.” Fernández refers to songs such as El azul de los Peso Pluma, the most internationally known corrido tumbado band, which sings “In the blood I bring the 701”, the name by which the gun of capo Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán is known. . “Always afiados, we are not asses/we are warlike, we die warlike,” goes the theme of the Guadalajara group, who has also composed songs with the Colombian Blessd with references to drug trafficking full of intention, as Sergio Álvarez highlights, because they reflect the links between the mafia organizations of both countries. “The drug cartels are infiltrated in all the businesses in Latin America, in Medellín people tell you how much money a gangster put in to promote J Balvin, Maluma or Karol G. The Colombian cartels take people and sponsor them until they put them in to sound, whoever gets that horse to win can make fun of those who didn’t succeed.”
The links with drug trafficking cannot hide, however, the relationship of the corrido tumbado with the success of Latin music on a global level. “If not, it would not explain that 900 million people downloaded a song, there are not that many people who speak Spanish,” highlights Ramírez-Pimienta, relating the success of tumbado with the decline of English in the global market, which opens spaces for music like K-Pop. This opening is also related to the loss of the identity of the corrido in the new artists of the genre, with less weight given to narration and local themes. “Many are not even a corrido, they are songs of emotions” where traditional instrumentation has also lost its importance.
“The majority of corridos tumbados artists were born in the United States,” highlights Luis Hernández. They are not Mexicans, they live in a country “where their family may not be well regarded, but they were already born here.” The lyrics, the reality “are different, these kids hear stories about the Sinaloa cartel in their parents’ corridos, but they don’t visualize it in the same way. It is not better or worse, they look for a way to explain what they experience, they do something important as long as they respect their audience and realize that they are an example for many.” An advice that groups like Northern Enigma do not seem to follow, which last year canceled a performance in Baja California after the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel published a “narcomanta”, a message in which it announced that it was no longer under its protection. Grupo Arriesgado, linked to Chapo Guzmán, experienced a similar situation, which in 2023 saw how its singer, El Panter, left the group after receiving a narcomanta, after which the group began singing to the Sinaloa cartel.
Although surprising, these cases are anecdotal and not the norm today, limited to the Tijuana region. “Most of them can sing everywhere,” says Ramírez-Pimienta. Luis R. Conríquez’s latest album, Corridos belicos Vol. 4, is an example, as he dedicates corridos to the cartels of Sinaloa, Jalisco and the people of northeastern Mexico. Nothing to do with the image of narcocorridos as a reflection of wars between cartels, “it is a mistake to overemphasize this relationship that clearly does exist, but clouds the understanding of the cultural and musical phenomenon,” especially when we talk about the new artists of overall weight. “Some of these singers charge two million dollars per performance, they are there to sponsor, not to be sponsored,” and remember that Mexico is the only country where the tradition of the corrido, which is equated with romance or the chansons of France, is maintained. alive, “not only as a tradition, but as a music industry, the most important in the country.”
For their part, the Tigres del Norte are willing to collaborate with the authorities, with whom they negotiate to be able to sing some narcocorridos in exchange for these not being the dominant themes in their concerts, which now focus on romantic stories when they perform in Mexico. while they dress up certain songs “to sing them without hurting anyone,” as Luis Hernández acknowledges. “We have to be responsible, we want to cooperate with the government, and if they think it is a way to eradicate violence in the streets, I think you should obey and serve as an example for society.” Although he remembers that his audience “if you don’t sing certain songs to them they leave dissatisfied, if we want to continue going to work, we also have to respect” this audience.
That’s why they always end up asking them to sing Camelia, The Plane of Death or La Camioneta, “they shout them like when they applaud a soccer player,” says Luis Hernández. “The public tells us that we don’t apologize for crime, that a song doesn’t “What is happening in the streets is going to stop. They want to hear these stories, they are their experiences, their daily bread.”
“The old artists are feeling displaced by the new ones,” Sergio Álvarez disagrees, and remembers that violence always comes before the songs that deal with it. “All this violence exists but it is hidden, it is about fighting with inadequate weapons” a pressure that explodes through music. “The corridos tumbados reflect Mexican society, this is who we are, let’s stop lying, we are not Paulina Rubio or Alejandra Guzmán.” For the Colombian writer, it is clear that if drug trafficking disappeared from society, “these boys would go back to making love songs, for cows and horses, just like before.”
“Mexico is now more violent, and social networks have contributed a lot,” adds Luis Hernández. “Now the drug trafficker uploads videos threatening kidnappings and torture, before that did not exist, all of this speaks volumes about the hatred that exists between cartels, but it has also made society more aware and sensitive.” The solution, in any case, leads us to look at the neighboring country to the north, “the number one in drug consumption worldwide. Mexico faces a big problem because it is the bridge for everything that comes from other countries. “Who certifies the United States?” the Tigres ask themselves sardonically in El general, one of the political corridos in their repertoire, which has sometimes led them to be banned from public stations and television for topics such as The Farm, The Chronicle of a Change or The Circus, which denounced the corruption of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari. “We dared in the most difficult moments, and we have continued to do so.”
