Trans. Revista Transcultural de Música E-ISSN: 1697-0101 [email protected] Sociedad de Etnomusicología España Simonett, Helena Los gallos valientes: examining violence in mexican popular music Trans. Revista Transcultural de Música, núm. 10, diciembre, 2006, p. 0 Sociedad de Etnomusicología Barcelona, España Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=82201008 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative Los gallos valientes: Examining Violence in Mexican Popular Music Revista Transcultural de Música Transcultural Music Review #10 (2006) ISSN:1697-0101 Los gallos valientes: Examining Violence in Mexican Popular Music Helena Simonett Abstract Narco-music (narcomúsica, a type of Mexican music related to drug trafficking or traffickers) is a fast-growing business, notably in the United States where big music corporations are signing promising narco-bands and where Grammy Awards officially recognize and validate this new kind of popular music. At the heart of this essay lies the complex problem of how popular culture is redefining and mystifying the persona of the outlaw, which, with the help of the mass media, turns into a role model for many youths. Though fiercely contested, narco- music is a cultural commodity that succumbs to the hegemonic power of the culture industry. This music, thus, cannot be understood properly outside the wider power relations in which it is embedded and that nourish its growth. Resumen La narcomúsica (un tipo de música mexicana asociada al tráfico de drogas o a los traficantes de drogas) es un negocio en rápido ascenso en los estados Unidos donde las corporaciones de música están contratando las narco-bandas promisorias y donde los Premios Grammy oficialmente reconocen y validan este nuevo tipo de música popular. Como eje de este esnayo está la compleja problemática de la manera como la cultura popular está redefiniendo y mistificando la persona fuera de la ley, quien , con la ayuda de los medios, se constituye en un modelo para muchos jóvenes. Aunque atacada fuertemente, la narcomúsica es un prodcuto cultural que sucumbe alpoder hegemónico de la industria cultural. Esta música, por tanto, no puede ser entendida como si existiese por fuera de las amplias relaciones de poder en que está inscrita y que alimentan su desarrollo. In the early morning hours on March 27, 1997, minutes after the musicians http://www.sibetrans.com/trans/trans10/simonett.htm (1 of 19) [10/07/2007 13:41:10] Los gallos valientes: Examining Violence in Mexican Popular Music had finished their performance at a local baile (dance) in the rural area south of Mazatlán, Sinaloa, the roar of discharging guns disrupted the calm night. A group of forty hooded gunmen, disguised as agents of the Policía Judicial Federal and heavily armed with assault rifles, stormed the scene where an alleged drug trafficker had enjoyed the music of his favorite band, Banda El Limón, and had paid it to play an additional two hours—much to the delight of the local people. The target of the attack, José Luis Carrillo, the nephew of the legendary “Lord of the Sky,” was riddled with forty-two bullets; his buddy Guadalupe was shot six times. Carrillo had made the mistake to trespass the territory of a rival drug clan, causing the village to turn into a killing field. The local police officers counted a total of 150 cases after searching the crime scene the next day. The ferocity of this clash between feuding narcotraficantes (drug traffickers) even shocked the inhabitants of this area of northwestern Mexico who were used to hearing gunshots and who knew that every fiesta carried the risk of ending with a bloody encounter. The village was quiet the days after the killings: all male villagers had abandoned their homes out of fear of vengeance and new gun battles, leaving behind women, children and old people. Carrillo’s funeral was splendid: he was transported in an open trailer surrounded by his friends and accompanied by the Banda El Limón which was playing his favorite pieces (García 1997: 1B-2B). Since the 1970s, the accordion-based conjunto norteño and the banda sinaloense, a type of popular brass band which is locally also called the tambora (after its signature bass drum), have become more and more associated with and dependent on the subculture of Mexico’s drug dealers, called for short narcocultura (narco culture). Wherever drug bosses party, they hire a regional band to play their favorite music and to entertain the invited guests (Poppa 1990; Figueroa Díaz 1991: 17). There are indeed plenty of newly composed ballads that confirm this “custom,” and the musicians themselves do not keep these “special events” a secret either. The above recounted lethal encounter, however, is more than a simple anecdote. Rather it points to the very heart of a complex problem that involves questions about popular music and its relation to violence and to power, economic power in particular. In recent years, narcomúsica, music related to drug trafficking or traffickers, has become very popular among a predominantly young Spanish-speaking audience—not just in the regions where cultivation of marijuana is prevalent, but also in the cities north of the border where traffickers make a fortune by selling the illegal good. No longer confined to the subculture of the narcos (short for narcotraficantes), or gallos valientes http://www.sibetrans.com/trans/trans10/simonett.htm (2 of 19) [10/07/2007 13:41:10] Los gallos valientes: Examining Violence in Mexican Popular Music (brave roosters) as they call themselves, narco-music is a fast-growing business, notably in the United States where big music corporations are signing promising narco-bands and where Grammy Awards officially recognize and validate this new type of popular music (Simonett 2001b). At the core of this trendy music with deep roots in the Mexican ranchera (country) tradition is the narcocorrido, a ballad that describes, apotheosizes, comments, or laments the deeds of those involved in the drug cultivation and trade. The popularity of narco-music has provoked passionate discussions comparable to the gangster rap debate (O’Connor 1997; Ontiveros 1997). Based on mostly emotional and ideological judgments, people either condemn the narcocorridos for their negative and emulative effects on the youth or applaud them for “telling the truth”; but few have attempted to scrutinize the ambivalence at the heart of this new musical form. In his thorough examination of the relationship between poetry and violence in the ballad tradition of Mexico’s southern Pacific coast, folklorist John McDowell (2000) suggests that the corrido is more than a reflection of the violent conditions in which it exists. Rather than just celebrating, and thus perpetuating, violent behavior, he points out the corrido’s regulatory and healing function within the community affected by these very same acts of violence. With regard to the narcocorrido of the U.S.-Mexican borderlands, sociologist Luis Astorga (1995) similarly views the new compositions as a symbolic product that may generate a collective catharsis, but also as an example of an increased visibility of what has become allowed and tolerated by modern society. In my book on banda music (Simonett 2001a: 201-225), I have examined how particular character images perpetuated in folklore and songs have facilitated the acceptance of subcultural values among a large public, and how subversive individuals may convert into “folk heroes” by relating the drug lords to Jesús Malverde, Sinaloa’s most idolized and mystified social bandit. Indeed, narcocorridos began to emerge only after the activities of traffickers were largely tolerated and, in most cases, protected by Mexican officials. Although norteño groups have experienced governmental suppression and control of their musical activities as early as the 1970s when Los Tigres del Norte launched their first big hit, “Contrabando y traición” (Contraband and Betrayal), censorship of corridos which tell stories about drug smuggling was no a hot topic until bands began to record corridos that pointed to the involvement of high officials in the illegal business (for example, “El circo” [The Circus], composed by Teodoro Bello in 1995, names then-president Carlos Salinas de Gortari and his brother Raúl). Ridiculing the government’s attempts to repress its music, Los Tigres released an entire album with songs about drug trafficking in 1989 with the title Corridos http://www.sibetrans.com/trans/trans10/simonett.htm (3 of 19) [10/07/2007 13:41:10] Los gallos valientes: Examining Violence in Mexican Popular Music prohibidos (Forbidden Corridos). Admired by millions of Mexicans and Mexican Americans as “los ídolos del pueblo” (the idols of the people), Los Tigres del Norte is indisputably the most influential norteño group and one of the top-selling groups in the Latino market today. Its success has made the group “untouchable” and free to exercise harsh criticism of the Mexican government and official authorities, blaming them for the failure to win the “war on drugs” (for example, “El general” [The General] by Teodoro Bello on Los Tigres’ Grammy-nominated 1997 album Jefe de jefes [The Boss of Bosses]). As has been pointed out by communication theorists, the easy access to mass media and modern recording technologies in Western society, and increasingly in every society, aids the expansion of the plurality of voices and, thus, encourages the process of democratization. Yet, we ought not to forget that popular music is a cultural commodity disseminated by the media and, thus, succumbs to the hegemonic power of the culture industry. Narcocorridos are not simply “people’s chronics that transgress, desecrate, or question the official view,” as José Manuel Valenzuela (2002) defines them in his recent book on the genre.