In Mexico, the corrido â a form of musical ballad used to tell classic tales of romance and struggle â is nothing new, but it is now going global.
From the rapid success of Grammy-nominated artist Peso Pluma to Grupo Frontera linking up with huge stars like Big Bunny, a polished new take on traditional Mexican folk is having a real moment. Despite authorities' attempts to ban or censor some songs, due to some of the genre's lyrics depicting organised crime and cartel violence, its rise shows no signs of slowing.
First becoming popular during the Mexican Revolution as a way of reacting to the day’s news, taking the mick out of the opposition, and swaying public opinion, these narrative songs were used for mass-communication, and told the stories of brave, fearless heroes who defied the law, fought back against oppression, and often met a tragic or grisly end as a result.
“Stories are the heart, always,” says NPR Music host and Latin music expert Anamaria Sayre on the Chartbreakers podcast. “In terms of straight-ahead corridos, it’s like: you have your guy drinking at the bar, a rancho wearing his boots, and being like, she left me…”
Over time, the movement morphed into something more thorny: the sub-genre of narcorridos. While the sound remained largely the same â big brassy narrative ballads rooted in traditional Mexican folk, and filled with bassy bursts of tuba, and frantic, 12-string guitar â the lyrics often speak of brutal cartel violence. Some mythologise or make heroes out of the narcotics traffickers or gang leaders at the heart of illegal drug trading.
And now, it’s evolving yet again into yet another off-shoot called corridos tumbados. Heavily influenced by hip-hop and trap music, this latest corrido sub-genre has found an enormous global audience with the help of artists such as Natanael Cano, Eslabón Armado, Grupo Frontera, and perhaps the biggest of all, Peso Pluma.
It’s just one part of a wider chart takeover for so-called Regional Mexican music: a slightly vague umbrella term which serves as a convenient place to put all manner of distinct genres including mariachi, banda, norteño, sierreño, and of course, corridos. One of Spotify’s biggest playlists dedicated to “Música Mexicana”, Los Que Mandan, now has well over 3 million followers – Spotify says its following has increased by 277 per cent since 2020.
So, what exactly sets this new spin on corridos apart? Well, the crucial element has to be the jaunty pulse of parping trumpets, the ever-present brassy glue sticking the whole thing together. Sling in frantic 12-string guitars and an expressive singer who favours raw, imperfect-sounding emotive power over the flawlessly polished vocals we’ve come to expect from some of pop’s biggest stars, and you’re almost there.
Compared with the slower, more sombre corridos of old, these ones are faster-paced, and shinier-sounding, with the constant presence of a brass section and frantic, 12-string guitar. Though they sound vaguely traditional, the lyrics are anything but: instead of drowning their sorrows at the saloon, our new batch of plucky heroes have traded cowboy boots for designer garms, and sing of drunkenly scrolling through Instagram and texting their latest love interest while teetering dangerously on one percent battery.
Intrigued about why everyone and their nan is getting down to the sweet, sweet trumpet squalls? Shimmy right this way.
The Big Names
If you’ve not heard of Peso Pluma, that’s likely to change very soon; the Guadalajara-raised singer is nominated for his first Grammy this year, and trounced Taylor Swift, Drake, and Bad Bunny to become the US’s most viewed artist on YouTube in 2023.
UK listeners are fans, too: year on year, his Spotify streams are up by a staggering 15,356 per cent. Though his biggest hit of all, the Eslabon Armado collab Ella Baila Sola, is a straight-up love song which dominated the Billboard 100 last year – a traditional corrido, set in a strobe-lit nightclub – his music has also namechecked everyone from former drug-lord El Chapo to the highly potent drug blend cocaína rosada.
This has occasionally landed him in hot water: in one particularly high profile incident, Pluma was forced to cancel a planned show in Tijuana after allegedly receiving death threats from one of Mexico’s most powerful syndicates, the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación.
There are plenty of other names to listen out for: Natanael Cano is something of a pioneer and arguably the first to take corridos and transform them into the more polished sound sweeping the charts today. California-based band Fuerza Regida count Marshmello and Shakira as two recent collaborations, and have rapidly grown in popularity (by 996 per cent, according to Spotify) in the UK. Junior H â who collaborated with Pluma on his wildly popular track LADY GAGA â is another one to watch, along with Luis R Conriquez, and Tijuana-based Grupo Firme. Come for the incredibly stylish outfits, and stay for their bright, ridiculously fun take on a Mexican musical staple.
The crossovers
Bad Bunny is just one huge name to hop on the Música Mexicana bandwagon; the Puerto Rican superstar teamed up with the Texan band Grupo Frontera last year for their curveball megahit un x100to. Though it borrows certain aspects of the old-fashioned corrido – those swooning, loved-up lyrics are absolutely textbook – its sound is equally rooted in other genres like cumbia and reggaeton; in other words, a real melting pot. Grammy nominated Washington trio Yahritza y Su Esencia also linked up with Grupo Frontera last year; their collaboration Frágil has been watched 117 million times. Peso Pluma’s recent collaboration with Virginia artist Kali Uchis, Igual Que Un Ángel, is another standover crossover moment; Pluma’s distinctive, slightly nasal vocal adds an unexpected layer of added grit to this romance-drenched, contemporary synth-pop song.
The Controversies
Though corridos tumbados only continue to rocket in popularity, they have a complicated background. Though their political scope is often quite wide â exploring everything from immigration reform to migrant labour â a number of artists involved in the scene have been accused of glorifying cartel violence in Mexico.
The government there has attempted to ban “narcocorridos” â songs which tell the stories of gang leaders and their violent altercations. Back in 2017, the norteño band Los Tigres del Norte, who are well known for their political corrido songs, were fined more than £20,000 after they performed Contrabando y traición (a song about a drugs smuggler) at a festival in Chihuahua, where live performances of narcocorridos have been banned since 2011. Late last year, Tijuana also introduced a similar ban.
It all raises a number of important questions about artistic expression, which seem to have parallels with discussions around other genres such as drill. Where songs do tap into violent or disturbing subject matter, can artists really be held responsible for igniting it? Or is there a case to be made for music that touches on all sorts of subjects, no matter how uncomfortable?
The reality is that drug-related violence and corruption in Mexico continues to be a pervasive issue, with or without musicians singing about it. According to the Mexico Peace Index, murders related to organised crime have tripled since 2015 in Mexico, while a 2023 study found that cartels are the fifth biggest employer in the country.
But as the former Mexican foreign secretary Jorge Castaneda has pointed out, it feels unfair to blame musicians; often their songs undercut, satirise, or plainly set out the horrors of gang violence. "Corridos are attempts by Mexican society to come to terms with the world around them...You cannot blame narcocorridos for drug violence. Drug violence is to blame for narcocorridos".
Attempts to censor the genre are so far seeming counterproductive: a study found last year that state censorship has actually contributed to its popularity. And as the rest of the world rapidly catches on, it’s unlikely that corridos tumbados are on the way out any time soon.
