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Monday, May 13, 2019

The rise of Narco-Rap in Mexico

LeChef Borderland Beat from CTGN



Singing rap songs that glorify gangsters has become a top new beat in Mexico. The musical dedications to mobsters pay well but come with a high price to your future.

Correspondent Alasdair Baverstock reports on the rise of Narco-Rap.

As Mexico’s deadly drug war continues, the Mexican government has announced that more than 33,000 residents were killed in 2018. It’s a record number. And it’s the result of competing cartels fighting for a market worth billions of dollars every year.

There’s another market important to them as well. The desire for good Public Relations has led narco-traffickers to recruit some of the best talent to speak out - or “sing out” - on their behalf.



Chivis: more from BuzzFeed


When Big Los was deported from Texas to the Mexican border city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, in 2015, he was worried.

He’d released a rap track a few months before, “Alto Calibre,” boasting of the exploits of the Chilango, an incarcerated member of the Gulf Cartel. The man behind bars had been a major figure in the Mexican city of Reynosa, which is roughly 50 miles inland from Matamoros. The two cities have long been bastions of factions of the Gulf Cartel, and while those groups sometimes get along, they sometimes don’t.

From Big Los's "Alto Calibre"
Ruje un pinche Corvette ZR1 / se bajá él chilango anda armado hasta él culo / Bien paletoso trae un reloj julbo / Con la pinche super dice ábranse o los fumo.
[A fucking Corvette ZR1 engine roars / The Chilango steps out armed to the teeth / Real dapper, wearing a flossed-out watch / With the fucking gat he says, "Open up or I’ll smoke you."]
Big Los is a recognizable figure, known as much for his gruff voice and gun-toting music videos as his massive physique, reminiscent of Big Pun or the Notorious B.I.G. After arriving in Matamoros, Big Los immediately felt he’d be a target for the rival clique who controlled the city, so he said he called someone connected to the cartel, “a friend of a friend.”

“I told him, ‘I don’t feel comfortable in the streets, man, everyone seems to know me,’” said Big Los in February. “‘I don’t want to get picked up because I did a song for a certain guy over there. And there’s an internal war between you guys.’”

The rapper was no stranger to Matamoros: He’d actually been born there before his family illegally migrated across the border to Brownsville, Texas, when he was a child. As a teenager, growing up in a rough part of Brownsville, he sold drugs and eventually ended up in jail. After release, he found rap music, and used it as a way to leave the streets. (He was deported to Mexico in 2015 after he tried to apply for US citizenship.)

While many rap artists look at the money and fame that comes from their music as an escape from the hardships of their lives, narco rap is an exception. The primary feature of the Spanish-language hip-hop subgenre is that drug cartel members pay rappers to make songs about their lives, called “dedications,” thus actually inviting hardship in. Big Los, one of the pioneers of narco rap, admits he regularly gets death threats via social media from people claiming to be contrarios — members of enemy cartels.

Starting in the ’80s and ’90s, artists combined the accordion-filled traditional corrido genre with this practice of telling boastful tales of drug traffickers in Mexico, and narcocorridos are still wildly popular today. However, in the last decade, a modernization of the practice has flourished in rap music, specifically concerning the Gulf Cartel along the Texas-Tamaulipas border, in tandem with cartel infighting and the Mexican government’s crackdown on gang violence and drugs. And now narco rap is spreading rapidly to other criminal groups throughout Mexico, like the Zetas and the Sinaloa Cartel, and the MS-13 in El Salvador. It’s also cropped up in Spanish-speaking communities in the US with narco rap songs delivered in English for the Latin Kings in Chicago and the Sureños in Los Angeles.

Big Los made it clear he isn’t a member of the Gulf Cartel, nor does he actually know the majority of the people he makes songs about. He receives messages through social media or text message explaining what the people want him to say about them; he checks that the songs have been approved by cartel bosses; then he makes the tracks for a fee.


And as one of the biggest-name narco rappers in the biz, Big Los makes the most money per song: around $5,000, and another $5,000 per video. Rapper 5050 (pronounced in the Spanish Cincuenta Cincuenta) charges $500. Lirik Dog, a Reynosa-based narco rapero, told me, “I’m one of the cheap ones,” charging $200 per dedication.

55 comments:

  1. Gente Nueva Special Forces is working with a very famous Reggaeton star to dedicate my team a spanish Trap cumbia reggaeton song. Its gonna be called "Animo Sicarios" .
    I am already practicing my dance moves.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. you finally did it 006----I am dead 👀

      Delete
    2. This is genuinely one of the funniest things I've ever read

      Delete
    3. You win the Internet for the day

      Delete
    4. This foo lol

      Delete
    5. Lol mofo l am rolling. Lmao 😆

      Delete
    6. Can’t wait to hear this on the next call of duty game. Good luck 00-Keyboard Warrior jaja

      Delete
    7. Well, that confirms what we probably all knew anyway. 006 is 12-13 yrs old.

      Delete
    8. 006 here you are, you promised our Pueblo, that British Special Ops, where coming to save our town from hoodlums. You make promises like Obrador, that you can't keep. I am telling your mom.

      Delete
    9. 006---I am a pretty good back up singer

      Delete
    10. Yup chivis es buena pa el 🎤

      Delete
    11. 4:10 i see what u did there. 😆

      Delete
  2. Big Los aka El Rey de Tortas

    ReplyDelete
  3. Garbage nothing more.
    What happened to youth listening to John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Marvin Gaye, Gato Barberi, Jimmy Hendricks ect.

    This is a part of the problem for many today. The idolizing of ignorance in culture has diminished who we are.

    E42

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't giva fack about mexikin or central amerikin rappers or salseros que "les gusta la gasolina", but I recognize their effort to individualize and that they have a following, even if they are all a bunch of caca... that was said before about drug addicted musicians of the past, their noises and their fans, of course nobody compares to Elvis, Cream, Beatles, Rockabilly, Psychobilly or the blues...
      "I Ain't Givin' Nobody None of my Sweet Jelly Roll" with Sweet Emma Barrett, or:
      "Keep it yo yourself" with, Sonny Boy Williamson II...
      Best regards from your back door man.

      Delete
    2. U are correct as to the usage of drugs by many artists today like that of those past musicians.
      But can honestly say that killing, drug trafficking and other violent acts were ever associated through their music.

      Unfortunately, an era where freedoms of speech by civil liberty groups contributed to this immoral behavior in the US.

      Delete
    3. Nigua said jimmy hendricks. Qiien es ese wey?

      Delete
    4. Jimmy Hendrix, some call him the best rock guitarist, died real young, thank drugs. and "Purple Haze" which is a drug that never killed anyone according to some wise asses.

      Delete
    5. Despite his drug usage (Hendricks,ect). His music like many portrayed the discriminatory nature of inequality. Along with the oppression and suffering from a political perspective. A revelation from which government were not pleased with.

      I'd like to think that most rap songs portray the message of one's environment. The product of what was handed to communities and societies.
      Its this vulgarity and transparency of immoral behavior creating the ignorance which society is facing.

      E42

      Delete
  4. Where can I get a CD? Is the band going to tour? I can't wait to catch them on; American Bandstand, Soul train, Shindig, Hootenanny, Hullabaloo. Maybe Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. I hope the band doesn't go out of style before they get popular.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Damn they didnt even mention a El Makabelico
    En mi opinion ese wey tiene Las mejores rola
    Puro Comando Exclusivo!
    Desde Califas-Escondido
    Siempre Zumbando con sus rolas bien belikas!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Best Rap, Los Razo y Psycho Realm.

      Delete
  6. Still waiting for the breakout Mexican rapper. Kid Frost didn't quite scale the ladder. South Park Mexican was gonna do it 'till he start fooling around with young girls. Capone-E isn't even Mexican. Back in the day I loved Lighter Shade of Brown. Brown Prider Funk has a great YouTube channel, I bet he has rapper potential. Where is the Chilanga Cardi B?

    ReplyDelete
  7. What is interesting is that it tends to be more Tamps/Texas based, never have heard this in the Baja region, ever. No rappers, just corridos.

    ReplyDelete
  8. This foo aint nothing,theres only one "big los" n thats "LOS" ANGELES city..learn real rap not crap like this or sing straight corridos nothing in between..

    ReplyDelete
  9. What happened to Brujeria and Asesino? Death metal narco> rap bs.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Apparently his broom gave way.

      Delete
    2. 1:51 oh my gaawd!
      Y ya le sacaron El Palo?

      Delete
  10. Sinaloa sicarios have a few narco rap songs about them too, just like the so called "trap corridos "

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ya, like the fat rat who caught the cat.
      Come on dude.

      Delete
    2. 153 put the pipe down my boy you make zero sense.

      Delete
  11. Whos that in the video. Big maruchan?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Looks like El Bomba. From Los jefes movie.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Where are the holes for the three fingers?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 7:49 you will have to roll his ass in a whole Lotta flour to find them, then sink some marine oil platform concrete to keep them located, there may be some real greasy oils over there.
      I beleeve this guys is Hawaiian sumo wrestler "el lazy"

      Delete
  14. Won't feel sorry for Big Los or other narco rappers when their time comes.And it will...

    ReplyDelete
  15. In my opinion this crap music is lame.. I support Latin people doing positive and constructive things, but this is not art. This genre belongs to the morenos. You’ll never see this crap down south in TIERRA CALIENTE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 10:43 then you never heard of Vanilla Ice or M&M (caca Eminem)... But some guy made a Lotta. Money playing with their original name brands... And I don't want to name J-Lo or "pink", the capones, Gottis, also used someone else's notoriety, Guccimane stole from El Juchiman, battle name of rapper El Sol Prendido

      Delete
    2. 10:43 You must be old, senor curadora de la cultura mexicana, and it is highly-offensive to imply that because it isn't art it belongs to morenos. If you're a young man or women musician, why spend three years learning guitar when with a smartphone or cloud app you can be banging out rap tunes in a matter of days? Presto, you're a rapero getting girls while poor Juancho is still trying to figure out a G chord.

      Delete
    3. Beautifully said 10:43.

      Delete
  16. Sorry Mr. President. Crime is getting worse under ur administration.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 11:58 eesteeee, eso, les, pasa, por elegir, criminales... por,
      su, presidente, este... you know, the Oringinal, Sin..
      --Wuuuh, Presidente AMLO, speaks poco, and slowly, but always nails them by the tail...
      Even Bladdermir Putin is come knocking NOW, after defeating Guaido and his banana Republic armed with plastic bananas and Colombian Falsos Positivos... Wonder how much Putin spent on Oringis for the opportunity to make Latin America dance Katzachok...
      Please, post, print, and send to Stratfor Intelligence, it's free.

      Delete
    2. 7:05 put down the pipe and seek help.

      Delete
    3. 6:48 ah needs me no help,
      ain't no revolutionary here Sir Mister Sir.
      You could use some scrubbing do.

      Delete
  17. chivis,whats that comment all about?we dont you dead

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anything is better then that Mexican polka sounding crap. Id rather hear rap then that annoying music.

    ReplyDelete
  19. on the subject of Narco Rap it is worth mentioning that youtube recently seems to have nuked Moros Rap, which was the big CDG page which would post songs of all the different factions (including ones i was under the impression hated each other)

    ReplyDelete
  20. COMMANDO EXCLUSIVO is the fuckin best (and you guys forgot to mention them!)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Puro Comando Exclusivo desde SUR Califas

      Delete
    2. his page just got nuked today, Moros Rap got taken down a day or two earlier. youtube seems to be taking them down now for whatever reason

      Delete
  21. Tambien ay grupos tocando musica metellero narco. Buscan los, Empty Shell Metal. \m/

    ReplyDelete

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