Cocaine and Accordions: El Chapo Aids Mexican Drug-Song Culture

Narcocorridos, the Mexican musical subculture glorifying drug traffickers, has experienced an unexpected upswing in popularity thanks to the recapture of kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

The Internet phenomenon, frowned upon by authorities who want to ban the songs for promoting violence, boomed when songs were released detailing El Chapo’s last moments of freedom.

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Wearing cowboy hats and sombre expressions, members of La Ventaja group sing about the lonely Sinaloa mountains.

“When I arrived at the sierra, from far away I saw a little old lady who was crying. What happened ma’am? It’s that they grabbed El Chapo, if the news is true, it sends us into poverty,” the ditty goes, sung in impassioned tones, accompanied by throbbing accordions.

The sad thing is that especially in Sinaloa, drug traffickers do contribute to the economy, providing employment and investing in infrastructure, and spending huge amounts of money in parties and other luxuries, even more so than the government itself.

Other songs state that the drug lord, who has escaped from prison twice before, is already plotting his flight from a top security facility.

The admiration of many residents of El Chapo’s home state Sinaloa have for the criminal, seeing him as a protector, is a theme for several of the songs, like “The recapture of the lord” by Conjunto Dinamico or “The capture of El Chapo 3” by El Morro.

According to La Jornada, Alfredo Rios of El Komander, a famous narcocorrido singer, is preparing the launch of “El Chapo fell.”

El Komander released a song on YouTube several years ago called “Return of El Chapo.”

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Irvin Sanchez, accordionist and singer from La Ventaja, told AFP that with his narcocorrido song, “The people cry” he was not trying to “praise or offend anyone” but his song predicted the new escape of El Chapo.

“Don’t you worry, soon they are going to set him free. If not, then he’ll escape, and that will be proved,” he said.

The music forms part of Mexico’s narco-culture, a movement expressed also in film and literature, making apologies for the country’s grave volume of drug deaths.

Narcocorrido singers are often paid vast amounts of money by drug traffickers for their troubles.

But the work is dangerous: since 2006 more than 50 narcocorrido singers have been murdered in Mexico.

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