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Split on drug culture, Mexican ballads flourish in digital age
With songs chronicling the lives of drug traffickers or railing against violence, new Mexican ballad singers are enjoying success through digital platforms.
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Mexican singer Vivir Quintana performs at the House of France Cultural Center during the 'Noche de las Ideas' (Night of the Ideas) event in Mexico City, on May 12, 2022. (AFP/Claudio Cruz)
W
ith songs chronicling the lives of drug traffickers or railing against violence, a new generation of Mexican ballad singers are enjoying success and skirting censorship through digital platforms.
Abraham Vazquez, 22, and Vivir Quintana, 32, are two of the new faces of the "corrido" genre that emerged during the Mexican revolution of 1910-1917 to tell an alternative story to the official narrative.
Vazquez, originally from the northern state of Chihuahua, boasts 1.1 million listeners monthly on Spotify.
His rap-infused "narcocorrido" -- a ballad about drug traffickers -- "El de las dos pistolas" (The one with the two guns) has been played 52.8 million times on the digital music platform.
The video for the song exalts the world of gangsters with wads of dollars, guns, and women in a swimming pool. It has been viewed 27.7 million times on YouTube.
Fed up with her students listening to such songs, Quintana, a teacher from the northern state of Coahuila, turned to "anti-narcocorrido," which emerged five years ago, to denounce gender and criminal violence.
She recently released "El corrido de Milo Vela" (The Ballad of Milo Vela) -- a tribute to journalist Miguel Angel Lopez, murdered in 2011 along with his wife and son in the eastern state of Veracruz.
