Mexican Govt. Moves to Ban Soundtrack to the War on Drugs

If you can’t take out the illegal drug market, at least you can take out the music genre it has spawned. That seems to be the logic of the Mexican government. As Phillip S. Smith at DrugWarChronicle writes,

Under a bill presented to Mexico’s congress last week by the ruling National Action Party (PAN), musicians could be sent to prison for playing songs that glorify the drug trade. People who produce or perform songs or films that glamorize criminality could be imprisoned for up to three years, according to the proposed legislation.

The bill is aimed squarely at narcocorridos, the norteño musical form typically featuring men in cowboy hats playing guitars, accordions, and drums, and singing about the exploits, trials, and tribulations of people in the drug trade. Corridos have been a border musical form for more than a century, but in the past, their themes tended to romance, revolution, and banditry.

These days, narcocorridos are popular on both sides of the border, with groups like Los Tigres del Norte or Los Tucanes de Tijuana pulling in crowds of tens of thousands in Tucson and Torreon, Austin and Aguascalientes. But as with gangsta rap in the US, politicians, law enforcement officials, and moral entrepreneurs have denounced the form for glorifying Mexico’s wealthy, violent drug trade.

Traffickers have been known to pipe taunting or threatening messages accompanied by narcocorridos into police radio networks after some killings. And while narcocorridos often lament personal disasters in the drug trade, they also extol successes, lionize leading traffickers, and ridicule security forces.

I looked around to find translated narcocorrido lyrics. Here’s one translated verse from Lupillo Rivera:

“A ballplayer, gentlemen, throws balls in the park. I am a ballplayer, but of a different sort. If you do not understand me, friends, allow me to explain. The little balls I throw are of pure white powder, It is a very good vitamin to get you stirred up, And a toke of marijuana will serve to relax you.”

Check out Elijah Wald’s site on the Narcocorridos – he points to Los Tigres del Norte as the pioneers: “the dominant band in the field for the last 30 years. Los Tigres are kind of a Mexican equivalent of the Rolling Stones and Willie Nelson combined, the biggest ‘roots music’ stars on the scene. Their albums sell in the millions, and their concerts can draw upwards of 100,000 screaming fans.”