Chalino Sanchez and Los Alegres del Barranco are famous singers who paid the price for singing narco corridos. These 2 stories show the dangers that these songs can bring to people. As a result, many people are asking: Should the music be banned?
Narco corridos have been rising in popularity recently. Many music groups have made songs dedicated to narco leaders or events that happened. For example, “Culiacanazo,” which happened in Culiacán when the Mexican military tried to capture the son of another notorious kingpin, El Chapo. His son "El raton" escaped but was eventually caught and inspired the song “La people” by Peso Pluma.
On Saturday, March 29, the group Los Alegres del Barranco surprised concertgoers by showing photographs of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias "El Mencho," as they played a song that mentioned the notorious drug trafficker feared by many in Mexico at their concert in Zapopan, Jalisco.
They played at the Telmex Auditorium in the concert "Los Alegres del Barranco," where they were accompanied by Tito Torbellino Jr. and Los Nuevos Rebeldes. The event didn't take long to reach social media, with concert fans capturing the performance. Even the band itself ended up posting videos capturing that night's performance. The band sang one of their most loved songs to the people but while singing they displayed a video of a man in a cock fighting ring saying he is “soy el dueño del palenque” and big pictures of el menchos mugshot.
As soon as this hit social media, it sparked fear in people because the cartel has recently been classified as a terrorist organization, not to mention the dangerously high tensions at the border right now. Not only that, but recently, there was a discovery of a mass grave site in Jalisco, which people said was wrong for them to glorify the kingpin.
This isn’t the first time that music and cartel violence paths have crossed. During the 80s & 90s, Chalino Sanchez created many songs, including his famous genre of corridos. Before his fame, Chalino was a kid that came from very poor beginnings before moving to Tijuana after shooting and killing a man who raped his sister.
However, his music attracted much unwanted attention from narco members who told him many times to stop singing about guns and drugs. Ultimately, Chalino’s refusal to take the warnings caught up to him at his May 1992 concert, where he was passed a note from a man in the crowd who ordered him to stop singing because he was glorifying someone who had a lot of power on the side of their enemies. Chalino not only ignored the warning but then proceeded to read the note aloud and kept singing. This ultimately led to his demise, as later that night Chalino was picked up by cartel members and was killed in a car.
The consequences of playing or singing Narco Corridos have increased over the decades, and we are now seeing an increase in threats and even death as we saw with Chalino Sanchez. Some people say that Narco Corridos should be banned because they influence people to join cartels and do many bad things,, while on the other hand,, many people believe that it's just music and it's not harming anyone.
Since Chalino's death was unexpected, it served as an example for any other person who wishes to take this path in music. Not only did the cartel get even more hostile and remorseless, but if this were to recur, it would be even bigger because of the new usage of social media, resulting in more people seeing what happens to people who sing in this genre, scaring them and making them even more against them.
