Narcocorridos: The Music of Mexico's Drug Trade Sam DeLeo - Paste
go to original July 27, 2014

Narco Cultura Official Trailer (FilmFestivalVideos)

A boozy El Paso, Texas, crowd sings along with vocalist Edgar Quintero of the band Los BukNas de Culiacan: “Cross my path and I’ll chop your head off/ We’re bloodthirsty, crazy, and we like to kill.” Instead of mugging to look threatening, most of the people in the audience are laughing while singing the lyric - they came to let off steam and drink beer.

The scene is from Shaul Schwarz’ 2013 documentary, Narco Cultura. Despite the reference of Culiacan, Mexico, in the band’s name, Los BukNas is from L.A. The ranchera songs they and many other Mexican-American bands like them perform are known as “narcocorridos,” venerations in Spanish to the exploits of drug cartel members. Across the river from the film’s El Paso concert hall, the violence of the narcocorridos is real.

Juarez, Mexico, remains one of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world, dropping from its No. 1 ranking in 2008-2010 to 37th this year, according to a recent report by the El Paso Times. In Juarez, the narcocorrido serves a secondary purpose besides entertainment: Drug cartels pipe the songs into police scanners as announcements that they’ve just made a hit. It’s their version of the breaking-news email.

Read the rest at Paste

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!