The letters of discord: what the narcocorridos speak in the sight of the prohibction

Has just begun to sing The codeinewhen sound technicians cut the audio of Natanael Cano. “They say that it is only the white polvito to relieve us, / but that is a lie (…). ”The instruments continue to sound and he continues to sing, but the speakers are turned off. On Saturday night, the public of the Palenque de Aguascalientes has insistently asked him to sing another of his songs, Bluish horn. Cano takes the microphone: “Ask her government, not me. With much respect we come to sing, and with much respect for all the people who are prohibiting us from singing and demonstrating our art, it is worth (cock).” The scene, which occurred on May 3, is one of the last episodes of the nth controversy of narcocorridos, the genre under the magnifying glass of the Mexican authorities. The controversial letters, which tell drug trafficking and organized crime stories, are often encrypted under the codes used by organized crime. Others simply use metaphors or talk about the subject explicitly.

Ainhoa ​​Vásquez, author of Narcocultura (Paidós, 2024), explained to this newspaper that the people involved in the illegal business “need to create their own codes to relate.” Those codes in which criminals are wrapped have seen the light, until they appear in the songs of the new artists. Although the genre became popular with the northern Tigers – who told stories with a more digestible language – the new artists introduce more encrypted letters.

These are the meanings of the songs that have starred in the controversy in recent weeks:

The cheerful of the ravine

The Sinaloense group caused the outbreak of the controversy after projecting the images of Nemesio Oseguera, The Mencholeader of the New Generation Jalisco poster (CJNG), during an performance. The controversy resulted in the withdrawal of American visas to the musicians and in the accusation of apology to the narco by the Jalisco Prosecutor’s Office. The group has challenged the authorities in recent weeks, interpreting again The palenque live and bargaining the prohibition of some states through narcokaraokeswhere it was the public, and not them, who interpreted the subject. Last Monday they were linked to the process in Jalisco.

Luis R. Conriquez

After the controversy that caused the performance of the cheerful of the ravine, singer Luis R. Conriquez, another exponent of great influence of the genre, was presented in a palenque during the Texcoco horse fair, in the State of Mexico. The public demanded Corridos and Conriquez responded, between chiflidos and boos, that that night they would not have. “How do we do it? I’m leaving the house, better. Right now I’m leaving …” That did, he left, and people went to his musicians.

Firm group

The group affirmed shortly after the outbreak of the controversy that the songs of this genre included in its repertoire are “fictional.”

Junior h

The Guanajuatense musician was one of the pioneers of the lying corrido, accompanying Natanael Cano at the beginning of the variant of the genre. He was one of the artists who acted in April in Coachella, one of the most important festivals in the world. There, he did not sing any of the runs with controversial or apologetic letters, perhaps because of the threat to the withdrawal of the US visas-as happened days before with the cheerful ones-although he has not specified why.

Neton Vega

Although the name of Neton Vega is not as popular as that of Junior H, Natanael Cano or Weight Feather, the composer born in Baja California Sur has written some of the most successful songs of these other artists. They stand out for example Rubicón, the patrol and People, Topics in the feather weight catalog.

Natanael Cano

The San Marcos Fair was the space that starred in the chapter for the Hermosillo musician in the controversy. Cano is also the precursor of the corridos lying down, although it has also influenced the variant of the war.

Pen weight

Pen weight, the most listened to Mexican worldwide in recent years. He made a single presentation after the beginning of the controversy, along with Junior H at the Coachella Festival, in the United States. Hassan Emilio Kabande Laija, real name of the artist, prepares a tour of Europe that begins in June 2025. Sings topics with hard drug trafficking portraits in a language that looks like another language; Some of the most famous were written Roberto Laija, artistically known as Tito Double P.

Double tito p

Roberto Laija Laija’s career, Tito Double P, began by the hand of his cousin pen weight. Wrote The Belicon, the hawk, AMG, PRC, always pending. When the war run impulsed, the songs arrived in Tiktok and between dances, memes and personal improvement videos, they became the most listened to in the world, and all Laija creations were in this wave. With that curriculum, he not only continued writing for his cousin, he also began to do it for all the exponents of the Corrido and undertake his solo career.

Roberto Laija said in an interview with the businessman Pepe Garza, in September 2023, that after the weight of pen he recorded and launched two songs of his, The Belicon and Always pending, He knew that he had to continue his way. However, what put the reflectors on him was a video of a security camera in which he looks at pen weight discussing with someone, a man with black shirt and beige cap with the visor back and unknown identity. In social networks it was unanimous that this was a double Tito P. “It was not me, but how the followers uploaded to me,” he said.

Although the issues described usually focus their letters to the CJNG and the Sinaloa cartel – the two criminal groups with more weight in the country -, the content of the narcocorridos has also had other figures of organized crime as protagonists. So far, the Government of Mexico has chosen not to prohibit them (“it would be absurd,” said the president, Claudia Sheinbaum, in the middle of April), but some local and state executives throughout the national territory have prohibited them or imposed sanctions.