[FITZ]

Americans need to brush up on Mexican culture since it is becoming a very large part of the US, and much of that culture is about running and dealing drugs. The most popular Mexican music in the US is about drugs and murder of US police and other law enforcement. There is even a shrine in Sinaloa to San Juan Malverde, the patron saint of drug traffickers.

NARCOCORRIDO: A JOURNEY INTO THE MUSIC OF DRUGS, GUNS, AND GUERRILLAS

by Elijah Wald HarpersCollins Rayo November 2001

by Barbara Flaska PopMatters Associate Music Editor

The thuka-thuka-thuka of a low-flying helicopter and the sudden wail of a police siren. My heart skips a beat and the adrenaline is already dripping out my pores. This is going to be exciting! The siren screams up closer, almost catching up, and suddenly there are a few surprising loud blasts from a tuba that begins the exchange. The pedal hits the metal as Jenni Rivera begins singing and floorboards the supercharged "La Chacalosa". Corrido! This is corrido! Trumpets play en doble, clarinets carry signature lines, and lots of cymbals crash for emphasis: "Me buscan por chacalosa, soy hija de un traficante / Conozco bien las movidas, me creí entre la mafia grande / De la mejor mercancía, me enseñó a vender mi padre".

¿Que? ("I am wanted for being chacalosa, I am a trafficker's daughter / I know all the moves, I grew up around the top mafia / My father taught me how to sell the best merchandise".) This is corrido, but the lyrical content has been updated. And so began my introduction to a new form of corrido known as narcocorrido, where Mexican polka meets gangsta lyrics and huge sales result. When it comes to sales and popularity, the Recording Industry Association of America tallied for the year 2000 that more than half of Latin music sales in the U.S. are for Mexican Regional styles. (Please, read that last sentence again and let it sink in.)

Mexican Regional styles sell almost four times as many records as all the "tropical" styles (salsa, merengue, cumbia) put together. Perhaps not all of those records sold are corridos. But drugs and people singing about them are big business, and you've probably already read a review of Elijah Wald's book Narcocorrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas in the Wall Street Journal. The book is available in both English and Spanish editions.

[archy]

Americans need to brush up on Mexican culture since it is becoming a very large part of the US, and much of that culture is about running and dealing drugs. The most popular Mexican music in the US is about drugs and murder of US police and other law enforcement. There is even a shrine in Sinaloa to San Juan Malverde, the patron saint of drug traffickers.

NARCOCORRIDO: A JOURNEY INTO THE MUSIC OF DRUGS, GUNS, AND GUERRILLAS

by Elijah Wald HarpersCollins Rayo November 2001

[review snipped]

But drugs and people singing about them are big business, and you've probably already read a review of Elijah Wald's book Narcocorrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas in the Wall Street Journal. The book is available in both English and Spanish editions.

Concur. And the book is a pretty good read. My familiarity with the music came from the botanera a cantina next door to the coin laundry where I'm a frequent visitor. Aside from some pretty good TV coverage of fusbol, there's a jukebox with some pretty fair music on it, including several Tigres del Norte and Jenni Rivera tunes...and the Gloria Estefan music I tend more toward.

I'd say about half the songs on it are narcocorridos.... -archy-/-