Narcocorridos: Mexico's bloody drug ballads have American ears tingling

Published
11 February

By Bernd Debusmann Jr
BBC News

Set to the tune of accordions and trumpets, the ballad "In Preparation" by California native Gerardo Ortiz could be mistaken for a jaunty polka.  But its lyrics are chilling and brutal. 
"If you aren't good at killing," Mr Ortiz blares, "then you're good at dying."

The song goes on to describe a combat-ready gunman with a penchant for trucks and his AK-47 who goes by a "respected" codename: M1.  The man depicted is not fiction. M1 was the codename of a notorious Sinaloa Cartel drug trafficker, Manuel Torres Felix - or "the Crazy One" - who was gunned down in a firefight with Mexican soldiers in 2012. 

M1 may be dead but his infamy - and that of other gangsters past and present - live on in "narcocorridos", or drug ballads, which can be heard everywhere from small town fairs to nightclubs throughout Mexico.

The music draws on a deep tradition dating as far back as the Mexican Revolution, but with the zeitgeist of language and action ripped straight from the headlines.

More:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64337404