8-6-2004

Contrabando y Traición

Angel Gonzalez        

Contrabando Y Traicion (Smuggling and Betrayal) (drug smuggling song)    Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine, Spring, 2002, by Elijah Wald, Angel Gonzalez This song was composed by Angel Gonzalez around 1970. It is his only corrido, though he has written quite a few other ranchera hits. He says that the story is fictitious, but that many similar things were happening around that time, and he gives the credit for its success to its dynamic heroine: "I am a feminist, five hundred percent," Gonzalez says. "Woman is half the world, and what's more she's the mother of the other half In my songs, I always have the woman come out ahead. `Contrabando y Traicion' was the first song like that, and then, it was also the first song about the drug traffic. There was nothing like it." In fact, there had been occasional drug smuggling songs recorded since the time of the bootleggers, but this is the song that sparked the narcocorrido boom, and made Los Tigres Del Norte into stars. This song was made into a movie, spawned several sequels, and is known to virtually every Mexican and Mexican-American (though usually by the name "Camelia La Tejana, "rather than its official title).

Nov. 5, 2002, 9:29AM

LATIN MUSIC

Los Tigres' influence comes full circle

Los Tigres del Norte's influence and cultural impact have hit a new, unexpected milestone: One of the band's hits has inspired a popular novel in Europe.

Spanish author Arturo Pérez-Reverte wrote La Reina del Sur (Alfaguara, $19.95 paperback) about drug trafficker Teresa Mendoza, a character inspired by Camelia la Tejana, the protagonist of Los Tigres' seminal 1972 hit Contrabando y Traición.

When Los Tigres read the book, they liked what they saw.

"The author researched the characters for La Reina del Sur very well," vocalist Jorge Hernandez says. "It's a very realistic story."

Now the norteño kings return the favor by recording La Reina del Sur. The corrido is the title cut of its new album, out Tuesday.

While the idea of Los Tigres recording a song based on a book based on one of its songs may seem odd, Hernandez says the move could help them enter new markets. The group toured Spain last year.

"He (Pérez-Reverte) has a lot of readers in Europe," Hernandez says. "It's a market we want to reach, and we got together with him to do this production."

Plans are to turn the book into a movie, Hernandez says, "so we could be doing the soundtrack."

While it could help Los Tigres reach new audiences, the song, written by longtime collaborator Teodoro Bello, lacks the action and intrigue that made Contrabando y Traición a classic among corrido aficionados.

The album includes a couple of political songs as well. "There's a song called El Soldado that's about war," Hernandez says. "The father raises his son in a certain way in the United States, or anywhere, and the government calls him up and trains him to kill, and the father suffers because his son has to go off. But that's the son's desire. That's something we're living right now.

"We wondered how to comment on the war now and the problems with (Osama) bin Laden. We got the idea of doing something about soldiers, because there must be many parents in that situation. We called (songwriter) Enrique Valencia to do that song."

Valencia was a good choice for a song about intergenerational conflict, having written Los Tigres' hit Mi Sangre Prisionera in which a father laments years of inattentiveness toward his now delinquent son.

But overall, La Reina del Sur has a lighter touch than its predecessors.

Los Tigres' 2001 CD Uniendo Fronteras spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Latin Albums chart and spun off the singles Mi Fantasía, De Rama en Rama, Somos Más Americanos and Recuerdos Que Duelen.

But the song that generated the most controversy was Crónica de un Cambio. Recorded a few months after Vicente Fox's inauguration as president of Mexico, the song detailed problems he inherited from previous governments and asked when change was coming.

However, Crónica wasn't released to Mexican radio until July 2002, causing the social commentary to be misinterpreted as a criticism of Fox's administration. Fearful of offending the federal government, a major advertiser in Mexico, most stations nixed the song.

Ramiro Burr covers the Latin music scene each week.

www.fuoriluogo.it

Nuova Serie, Anno 4, Numero 6, Giugno 2002

Messico e nuvole

Il‘narcocorrido’ è una degenerazione della tradizione musicale popolare, un nuovo genere nato per narrare le gesta e le battaglie del Messico attuale e dei narcotrafficanti. Molte delle canzoni mantengono lo stile classico delle ballate e delle romanze del corrido (così definito per la velocità del ritmo, segnato quasi sempre da una fisarmonica) e rappresentano un vincolo anacronistico tra le tradizioni poetiche più antiche europee e il mondo del ‘gangsta rap’, della cocaina e del crack.

Le bande adottano il punto di vista degli emarginati e questo forse spiega la loro grande popolarità, maggiore della salsa e del pop tropicale di Miami, oltreché in Messico anche tra la comunità ispanica negli Usa, di cui fanno parte più di tre milioni di clandestini messicani. Originario degli Stati settentrionali messicani, il narcocorrido si è diffuso lentamente in tutto il Paese, tanto che il governo ne ha recentemente vietato la diffusione radio e tv su tutto il territorio nazionale nel tentativo di bloccarne la crescente popolarità, specialmente tra i giovani. Ma per trovare un cd o un nastro di narcocorrido basta andare in qualsiasi mercatino di città o di paese. E il successo del genere è evidenziato anche dalla grande quantità di copie contraffatte in circolazione. Il linguaggio dei testi è quello gergale dei narcotrafficanti, sospettati di sponsorizzare alcuni gruppi di narcocorrido. Il sospetto delle autorità messicane è che i narcos si servano del narcocorrido per far credere alla popolazione di essere i benefattori di quella larga fascia di emarginati dimenticata dallo stato. E di investire una fetta degli ingenti proventi del traffico di droga in opere sociali.

November 6 – 12, 1998

Corridos Prohibidos
Los Tigres del Norte, Idolos del Pueblo
by Sam Quinones

GUAMUCHIL, Mexico - By now it is very close to 4 a.m. on the outfield of the Garbanceros - the Garbanzo-Bean Growers - the baseball team for the town of Guamuchil (population about 100,000), not far from the Pacific Ocean in the state of Sinaloa. Los Tigres del Norte are dressed in the sweetest turquoise-satin suits you've ever seen, with white fringe to make David Crosby green with envy, and are bouncing through "El Avion de la Muerte" ("The Airplane of Death").

The song is about a man whom soldiers take up in an airplane and torture. He disarms one of them, takes control of the plane and decides to crash it into a military barracks on a hill in the distance. On the hill, he sees a school and children at play. So he pulls the plane up and smashes it instead into a hill farther away, killing himself and his torturers, who go to their deaths reduced to tears.

Now that's the kind of thing songs should be written about. It's a true story. The whole event was taped by an airport control tower.

And about now, on the Garbanceros' outfield, groups of staggering, short-haired young men in white cowboy hats, silk shirts and cowboy boots are feeling the song's sublime message. They hold each other upright in full-grip handshakes that take a good 10 seconds in the wind-up and consummation. Heads to the sky, faces contorted, they chortle along with Jorge Hernandez, Los Tigres' lead singer.

At stagefront, hundreds of young people, primarily teenage girls, stand crushed against each other, mouthing lyrics to a song recorded when most of them were in elementary school. Farther back, on the infield, couples grapple in various stages of consent as they rock to and fro with the polka beat.

And this moment, as the band tells this story of humiliation and revenge, as young men bond, young women squeal and young couples explore each other on a baseball field in a small town in a corner of Mexico - this moment you are getting close to the essence of Los Tigres del Norte, the most important and enduring binational band in pop music.

Los Tigres have played dances for 100,000 people in Los Angeles, Monterrey and Guatemala City. So this crowd of about 3,000 people is small by Tigres standards. Yet the band plays Guamuchil every year. It is a homecoming. Los Tigres grew up in Rosa Morada, a village of unpaved streets half an hour from here. Playing dates like this is one way the band shows that they remember who they are, where they came from, and that no matter how long they live in America's decadent gut, they remain mexicanos, cien porciento.

Los Tigres del Norte - four brothers, a cousin and a friend - are the Mexican-immigrant experience personified. Like thousands of immigrants, they crossed the border, made it in America, but never shed their most precious commodity, their mexicanidad - their Mexicanness. Like the Mexican-immigrant community, they are virtually unknown to American society at large. Within it, they are revered - Los Idolos del Pueblo.

This year marks the band's 30th anniversary. They have made 30 records and 14 movies, won a Grammy and were nominated for another this year, and have played thousands of dances on both sides of the border.

Los Tigres have twice created trends in Mexican pop music, first with songs about drug smuggling and, later, about immigration. Immigrants, in turn, transported Tigres' music to parts of Mexico where the band was unknown. Los Tigres' audience now stretches across the United States, and down to the states of Michoacan and Guerrero, and into Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. Together, the band and its public turned norteno into an international genre.

Meanwhile, the band modernized the music, infusing it with boleros, cumbias, rock rhythms and waltzes, sound effects of machine guns and sirens, better recording quality. In the process they made a pop style out of an accordion-based polka music indigenous to northern-Mexico cantinas.

Los Tigres emerged from an unnoticed side of the 1960s. As America's restless children were turning in rebellion to drugs and music, restless working-class Mexicans began coming to the United States. Their exodus was also a rebellion of sorts, if unarticulated and unpublicized. Mexico's young were leaving corrupt Mexico - the Mexico behind the sunglasses, the Mexico that never gave a poor man a chance - eager to re-create themselves in the fields and restaurants of Gringolandia. The irony was that in Gringolandia these immigrants wanted more than ever to be Mexican. They missed the pueblo, the girlfriend, Mom. Mostly they asked from the U.S. what Mexico had never allowed them - a chance to earn real money for hard work, to progresar.

As these immigrants grew into one of the most significant movements of people in the last half-century, Los Tigres became their chroniclers, spokesmen for a community that remains largely voiceless in both Mexico and the U.S. If you want to know what the Mexican-immigrant community is feeling, listen to a Tigres record. Their audience is your gardener and grocer, your car washer, your busboy.

Tigres' best songs are stories distilling the essentials of Mexican working-class life: brutal machismo, piercing irony and the tenderest melodrama - the honest cardsharp who, down to nothing in a poker game, bets his beautiful young bride, loses her and pays his debt by shooting her, then killing himself; the man who keeps a grave at the cemetery so his children will believe their mother died instead of running off with another man; the three inseparable drug smugglers who, surrounded by the DEA, blow themselves up with a grenade; the immigrant who leaves his young brother in the care of his fiancee to support the brother's education, only to return and find the brother has married his fiancee.

In 1968, the band - four kids - arrived at the border in Tijuana with a musical revue contracted to play for two dates: one, the September 16 Mexican Independence Day parade in San Jose; the other, for inmates at Soledad. Since the oldest was only 14, they had to persuade a middle-aged Mexican couple to pretend to be their mother and father. The band had no name. But the immigration officer kept calling them "little tigers," and they were headed north and playing norteno music, so they became Los Tigres del Norte.

Los Tigres never returned to Mexico to live. They stayed in San Jose and played small clubs, furniture-store openings and weddings for the Bay Area's growing Mexican community. They once shared a Berkeley festival bill with Big Mama Thornton and Janis Joplin, talking with the latter backstage as she and her band wolfed down apples that made them act funny. They might have remained just another cantina band were it not for a song that changed the group and norteno forever. Jorge Hernandez, the oldest brother, heard the song in an L.A. nightclub.

Los Tigres put out their version of that song, "Contrabando y Traicion" ("Contraband and Betrayal") in 1972. It tells the story of a man and a woman - he an illegal, she a Chicana from Texas - smuggling marijuana from Tijuana to Los Angeles. After exchanging the dope, the man says he's taking his money and visiting his girlfriend in San Francisco. However, his partner is in love with him. Unwilling to share him with another, she shoots him in a dark Hollywood alley and disappears with the cash.

The song beautifully fuses news item and twisted love story into a series of images that end in sweet tragedy. "It was like a film in the mind's eye," says Hernandez, the band's accordionist, lead singer and musical director. "And it was the truth of what was happening in those years. It came out at exactly the right moment. It spoke of the total chaos that is drug trafficking. Perhaps, also, people had never heard these things said so clearly in song."

By now America's youth was getting high in large numbers, and Mexican immigrants were seeing drug trafficking daily as they crossed the border. The song hit huge. "Contrabando" is now a norteno classic, and two sequels followed. Dozens of lesser-known bands have recorded it. Its two characters, Emilio Varela and Camelia La Tejana, are part of the Mexican cultural vocabulary.

The tune launched Los Tigres' career. But beyond that, "Contrabando" was the first hit about drug smuggling. a Los Tigres followed it with another, "La Banda del Carro Rojo" ("The Red-Car Gang"). Together those songs revealed a market and essentially created the narcocorrido, currently undergoing an explosion in popularity in Mexican music.

The narcocorrido updated the traditional corrido, or ballad, which told of revolutionaries, bandits or a famous cockfight. Instead, narcocorridos tell of drug smugglers, shootouts between narcos and police, betrayals and executions - bloody events set to a rollicking polka rhythm and an obliviously cheerful accordion line. Almost any norteno band nowadays plays a few narcocorridos. Hundreds of bands play nothing but. Narcocorridos are Mexico's gangster rap. Both musics recount horrible violence; both receive virtually no radio support and nonetheless maintain enormous audiences.

Catholic Church spokesmen and Mexico's center-right National Action Party have criticized the narcocorrido phenomenon, and the groups that play them, as part of "the culture of death."

"The only thing that we do is sing about what happens every day," Hernandez says. "We're interpreters, then the public decides what songs they like."

The public has long decided it likes the dope songs. For many years, the band included two or three on each album. In 1989, they put out Corridos Prohibidos (Prohibited Corridos), an entire album about drug smuggling. It was the first of its kind on a major label; there were reports that narcos were buying the record by the case. One of the songs dealt with the 1988 murder of Hector "El Gato" Felix, a muckraking columnist for the Tijuana newsweekly Zeta, who had angered many in Baja California politics. Tijuana radio stations refused to play the song, until Zeta raised hell.

Still, Los Tigres have tried mightily to distance themselves from the hundreds of cookie-cutter narcobands that have sprouted over the last 20 years. Their repertoire has always been at least half love songs. "Un Dia a la Vez" ("One Day at a Time"), a quasi- religious tune, responded to the growing influence of fundamentalist Protestant churches within the Mexican-immigrant community in the mid-1980s - churches that condemned dancing and singing as indecent. They won their Grammy for "America," a rock anthem expounding the universal brotherhood of all Latins.

Los Tigres reside by choice on the tamer side of the narco genre. Unlike the younger bands who followed them, they only occasionally mention the names of real drug smugglers, are never photographed with pistols or assault rifles, never curse in a song, and usually refer to marijuana and cocaine as "hierba mala" or "coca."

Other bands have allegedly received narco sponsorship. A drug informant, during an interrogation with police that was later published by a Mexican newsweekly, said Los Tucanes de Tijuana, one of the hottest narcobands, was sponsored by Benjamin Arellano Felix, leader of the Arellano Felix drug cartel.

In 1994, members of Los Huracanes del Norte were hurt in Guadalajara when a bomb exploded at a party they were playing for a family member of Rafael Caro Quintero, the imprisoned drug lord convicted of murdering DEA agent Enrique Camarena in 1985.

"[Narcos] have sent me letters, notes," says Hernandez. "They invited us to meetings years ago. We've never had the opportunity, nor wanted to meet them. We've made our career in public, not at [private] parties."

Los Tigres' explorations of the narco theme brought them fame. But the band earned a lasting transcendence when its songs began reflecting immigrants' conflicted feelings regarding Mexico and their new home.

At a dance in the mid-1970s, it dawned on Hernandez that many of the illegal immigrants hung back. They didn't laugh and shout as easily as those with legal papers. In 1976, the band put out "Vivan los Mojados" ("Long Live the Wetbacks"), an anthem to illegals that wonders what would happen to California's crops if all the mojados suddenly disappeared. Within the Mexican-immigrant community, the reaction to the song was electric. "That's when we realized that there was a market for this," Hernandez says. "We began to see that we needed to communicate with them."

In the early 1980s, Los Tigres hired as producer Enrique Franco, a musician and composer, who had just arrived from Tijuana. Franco gave them some of their most enduring and bittersweet songs on the immigration theme: "Pedro y Pablo," "El Otro Mexico," "El Bi-lingue," "Los Hijos de Hernandez" - all dealing with the wrenching dilemmas of immigrant life, with separation, love lost, the yearning to return home and the economic importance of immigrant labor.

In 1988, as war was sending thousands of Central American immigrants to the U.S., Franco wrote "Tres Veces Mojado" ("Three Times a Wetback"), a story of a Salvadoran refugee who crosses three borders to get to America. But "La Jaula de Oro" ("The Gold Cage"), Franco's greatest immigration song, was recorded in 1984. "Vivan los Mojados" had created a boom in novelty songs about immigrants, songs that generally were about the zany hijinks of wacky immigrants outfoxing the dull-witted migra. "[Immigration] had never been treated as a social problem," says Franco, now a record producer in San Jose. "I was illegal at the time. I never had the problem of communication with my children, but many immigrants do. There isn't time to talk to the kids. The children learn another language. That's where the gap between kids and parents begins."

"La Jaula de Oro" is told by an immigrant years after he outwits the migra. He's discovered he doesn't feel at home in the country he tried so hard to enter. Even worse, his children now speak English and reject their mexicanidad. And though he aches to return home, he can't leave his house for fear he'll be deported.

The U.S. is a "gold cage," says Hernandez. "You have everything. You live well, you have comforts. But it's another type of life, very different from ours. The United States is very solitary. And you can't relax, like in Mexico. There's not a lot of heart in the family."

Through the early 1990s, Los Tigres recorded fewer narcocorridos and immigration songs. But the nature of current events returned a harder thematic edge to Los Tigres' music. In 1995, they recorded "El Circo" ("The Circus"), about former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and his brother Raul, now in prison on murder and money-laundering charges. Radio stations, still unsure how government censors felt about the issue, refused to play the song until a news anchor began putting it on his morning show.

The band's latest album, Jefe de Jefes (Boss of Bosses) - the first double album in norteno history and for which Los Tigres were nominated for a Grammy this year - is more clouded than ever by the headlines. The title song is about a fictional drug lord, and the album includes several narcocorridos, including one about Sinaloa drug-cartel leader Hector "El Guero" Palma, arrested after a plane crash in 1996. "El Prisionero" is about the recent political assassinations in Mexico. "El General" deals with General Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, who was arrested in February, accused of being in the pay of the Juarez drug cartel.

And in the midst of heightened anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S., Los Tigres again touches the concerns of its most important audience. "El Mojado Acaudalado" ("The Wealthy Wetback") is a song about those who've made it in the U.S. but no longer feel comfortable here, and now are going home with heads held high. "Mis Dos Patrias" ("My Two Countries") has a naturalizing Mexican insisting that he is not a traitor to his flag, that he's only protecting his pension.

But it is another ballad that perhaps best sums up the feelings of immigrants these days. "Ni Aqui Ni Alla" ("Neither Here nor There") is doused in the pessimism brought on by America's anti-immigrant atmosphere and Mexico's economic crisis and corruption scandals. The song doubts immigrants' chances of receiving justice and, finally, of being able to progresar on either side of the border: "Wherever you go, it's the same. My dreams, neither here nor there, will I ever realize."

It is a philosophical U-turn for a band whose music and career were founded, like the Mexican-immigrant community itself, on a healthy optimism and belief in the healing powers of hard work.

"You have to tell the truth - we're not good here or there," says Hernandez. "Anytime a Mexican does something good in the United States, there's someone waiting to take it away from him. You never know if, making money and living right, you're going to make it."

Jueves, 31 de enero de 2002 - 04:49 GMT

Tiro de gracia a los narcocorridos

El gobierno de Chihuaha prefiere que se promuevan otros valores más positivos.

Escribe la corresponsal de la BBC en México, Elva Narcia

"Salieron de San Ysidro, procedentes de Tijuana,/ Traían las llantas del carro repletas de hierba mala,/ Eran Emilio Varela y Camelia la Tejana".

Así comienza la canción que inició el auge de la música del llamado narco-corrido, allá por el año 1972.

El tema se llama "Contrabando y traición" y habla de un par de traficantes, Emilio y Camelia, que emprenden un viaje, con las llantas de su auto llenas de marihuana, hasta encontrarse con un destino imprevisto.

Canciones como esa no podrán difundirse a partir de ahora en las estaciones de radio del estado fronterizo de Chihuahua, luego de un decreto aprobado esta semana por la Sexagésima Legislatura de esa entidad federativa.

El dictamen emitido por el Congreso de ese estado invita "atentamente" a los radiodifusores a evitar la transmisión de esos temas musicales pues "a fuerza de escuchar reiteradamente que los delincuentes son superhéroes, que cuentan con dinero a manos llenas y que carecen de privaciones, a través de las cintas o discos que se escuchan por medio de las radiodifusoras, los niños y jóvenes pierden el interés en el estudio, trabajo y valores familiares, para ambicionar el dinero fácil, la depravación y los vicios".

"Perjuicio directo a la sociedad"

La iniciativa fue promovida por el diputado Oscar González Luna, integrante del Grupo Parlamentario del Partido Acción Nacional.

El legislador expuso que los narco-corridos "difunden una forma de vida, de hábitos, costumbres y valores, como lealtad, religión y valentía, por lo que la niñez y juventud en general pretenden imitar estos patrones de conducta, que definitivamente a corto, mediano y largo plazo, ocasionan un perjuicio directo a la sociedad".

Asegura que las letras de las canciones que se trasmiten por las radiodifusoras a nivel estatal hablan de sucesos que tienen que ver con los narcotraficantes, secuestradores, lenones, homicidas y violadores, entre otros delincuentes.

"En ellas se hace alusión a la identidad de los sujetos, mismos que demuestran una manera especial de vestirse, enjoyarse, de hablar e incluso en sus pueblos o ciudades natales son muy populares y aceptados, ya que en muchas de las ocasiones cubren las necesidades de la población, como las de obras públicas, vivienda y empleos", agrega.

El dictamen del congreso de Chihuahua dice textualmente que el estado debe ejercer su obligación de proteger a la sociedad y vigilar que la ley se cumpla, procurando siempre hacerlo en su justa dimensión, con medidas de restricción para que estos productos no sean transmitidos masivamente a través de una frecuencia que, como bien nacional, debe operar bajo los principios del interés público y el bien común.

"Sonaron siete balazos, Camelia a Emilio mataba,/ La policía sólo halló una pistola tirada,/ Del dinero y de Camelia nunca más se supo nada".

N Z Z  Online

7. Januar 2004, 06:17, Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Schauplatz Mexiko

Das Lied des Banditen

Die seltsame Karriere des «Narcocorrido»

Am Stadtrand von Culiacán steht eine Kapelle. Einst war sie kleiner, lag an einem anderen Ort, angeblich über den Gebeinen des heiligen Malverde. Doch war sie dort den mexikanischen Behörden ein Dorn im Auge. Sie sollte weg und mit ihr das Gedenken an eine Figur, die von der Kirche nie ihr Sanctum erhalten hat. Ein Sturm des Protests brach los. Also traf man eine mexikanische Entscheidung, surreal und merkwürdig. Man riss sie ab und baute eine neue, schönere.

«Er war ein Bandit, aber niemals ein Mörder / wenn er stahl, dann aus Not», erzählen die Corridos die mexikanische Version von Robin Hood. Er teilte sein Geld mit den Armen, behaupten die einen; bösere Zungen spotten, dass er mit seiner Beute die Tavernen am Leben erhielt. Auch schön. Malverdes Mut und Dreistigkeit machten vor niemandem Halt - auch nicht vor dem Staat. So verwundert es nicht, dass seine Taten ihn zum Heiligen der Drogenkönige machten. Und zum Patron ihrer Chronisten, der Corridistas.

Die Stimme derer ohne Stimme

Geschichte, im zweifachen Sinne, bewegt den Mexikaner von jeher. Sie wird erzählt, mythisiert und am liebsten gesungen. Seit mehr als einem Jahrhundert sind die Corridos eine musikalische Zeitung für das einfache Volk, die Stimme derjenigen, die keine Stimme haben. Die Ursprünge des Corridos sind ungesichert, ein ewiger Streitfall unter Musikologen. Nationalisten verankern ihn in der aztekischen Kultur. Die Vermutung liegt näher, dass er mit den spanischen Eroberern und der Tradition der Romanze ins Land zog. Mit den Jahren wird aus einer elitären Gedichtform ein episch-narratives Volksgut, den Botschaften der fahrenden Sänger des Mittelalters viel näher als dem normativen Regelwerk der Romanze.

Seinen ersten Höhepunkt erlebt der Corrido zu Zeiten der mexikanischen Revolution. So viele Schlachten und Helden verlangen nach Verklärung. Also werden ihre Taten in die kleinsten Dörfer getragen, auf Märkten rezitiert, interpretiert und nicht mehr vergessen. Zumeist begleitet die Corridistas eine Gitarre, und zuweilen gibt es die Lieder, auf Zettel gedruckt, für ein paar Centavos zu kaufen. Doch bleibt der Vortrag stets wichtiger. Zu viele Dörfler können nicht lesen und erfahren so von den Taten Villas und Zapatas, ihren Zügen in die Stadt Mexiko und ihrem tragischen Ende.

Heute, in den Zeiten des globalen Dorfes, feiert der Corrido seine Auferstehung. Die multimediale Welt, so könnte man glauben, braucht keine Minnesänger mehr. Alphabetisierungswellen überschwemmen Mexiko, und Fernseher müssten für den Rest sorgen. Den Veränderungen der Welt setzt der Corrido seine eigenen Innovationen entgegen, bleibt sich dabei stets treu und fühlt den Puls der Zeit. Die vorgeschriebenen Koordinaten, das Reimschema und die meist vierzeiligen Strophen, werden gedehnt. Der Inhalt allerdings erfährt eine elementare Verschiebung. Der klassische Gesang vom heroischen Banditen, vom Rebellen mit gutem Grund, wird ersetzt. Heute sind es vor allem die Drogenbosse, die die mexikanische(n) Geschichte(n) bereichern.

Die Subversion ist von jeher Bestandteil mexikanischer Kultur. Bewundert im Volk, verkörpert der Bandit, ob gut oder schlecht, den Widerpart übermächtiger Institutionen. Er bietet dem korrupten Staat die Stirn und verweigert das Vorrecht US-amerikanischer Einflussnahme. Sein revolutionäres Potenzial ist zwar verloren, seine Taten jedoch sind manifest. «Sie kamen von San Isidro / wohnhaft in Tijuana / die Reifen des Wagens / gefüllt mit Marihuana.» Die Anfangszeilen in «Contrabando y Traición» von Los Tigres del Norte, harmlos auf den ersten Blick, stellen eine Revolution im mexikanischen Musikgeschäft dar. Dem Corrido wird fortan ein «Narco» vorangestellt, ein untrügliches Zeichen dafür, dass es sich um das Lied der Drogen handelt. In einigen mexikanischen Regionen ist das nicht mehr als eine Tautologie. Kein Wunder. Mexiko gilt als wichtigstes Transitland für kolumbianisches Kokain und ist selbst unter den Marktführern im Heroin- und Marihuanahandel. Die Drogenkartelle sind mächtig. Doch blieben ihre Taten geheim. Mit dem Narcocorrido ändert sich das. Die Illegalität bekommt eine Stimme.

Das erste grosse Zentrum des Narcocorrido liegt allerdings nicht auf mexikanischem Territorium, sondern in Los Angeles, der grössten mexikanischen «Enklave» in den USA. Nicht Merengue oder Salsa sind gefragt, vielmehr sind es die neuen Töne aus dem eigenen Süden. Ausgegrenzt und oft illegal leben Hunderttausende Mexikaner in den Vororten und hören in den neuen Liedern vom Scheitern amerikanischer Grenzkontrollen, von Schiessereien auf offener Strasse, dem Schicksal kleiner Dealer - und vom grossen Geld ihrer Bosse, die oft aus denselben Bergdörfern der Sierra stammen wie sie selbst. Die klein angefangen haben und die nun in Liedern besungen werden. Das Band der Identifikation ist schnell geknüpft. Die Verkaufszahlen steigen und werden in wenigen Jahren zur Industrie.

Der Corrido verlangt Authentizität, und so verwundert es nicht, dass sich ein zweites wesentliches Initial seines Erfolgs der fast mythischen Realität eines Interpreten verdankt. Waren früher die Corridos bekannt, so waren es ihre Sänger keineswegs. Mit Chalino Sánchez ändert sich die Geschichte. Aufgrund eines Rachemordes flieht er aus seinem Dorf über die Grenze. Wenig später wird sein Bruder erschossen, dem er im Gefängnis seinen ersten Corrido widmet. Erste Platten erscheinen, auf denen Chalino stets martialisch mit Pistole, Halfter und Gurt erscheint. Utensilien, die er auch bei seinen Konzerten trägt. In weiser Voraussicht: Als im Mai 1992 ein Besucher auf die Bühne springt und losschiesst, schiesst Chalino zurück. Er bekommt einen Streifschuss ab, sein Kontrahent allerdings wird - jedoch nicht durch Chalinos Kugeln getötet - von der Bühne getragen. Dem tragischen Zwischenfall folgen ungeheure Verkaufszahlen - und natürlich Corridos über den Corridista selbst. Das früher anonyme Gewerbe wird zum Sprungbrett junger Gruppen: Los Tigres del Norte, Los Tucanes de Tijuana, Grupo Exterminador, El As de la Sierra klettern an die Spitzen der Charts. Viele davon mit tatkräftiger Unterstützung der Drogenbarone.

Nicht schön, aber wahr

Längst ist der Narcocorrido in seine Heimat zurückgekehrt. Kein leichtes Unterfangen. In einigen Bundesstaaten ist die Ausstrahlung der Drogengesänge verboten. Sie kursieren unter der Hand. Ihre Ankündigung ist zuweilen skurril. Der Radio-Boykott macht die Verbreitung schwierig. Also produzieren die meisten Corridistas auch Liebeslieder, ein Code für das gleichzeitige Erscheinen ihrer Narcocorridos. Der Dunkelheit wird wie immer mehr Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt als dem Licht. Mit Recht. Zwar sind die Corridos zuweilen eine abstruse Mischung aus anachronistischem Akkordeon-Geschramme und gangsta rap, doch lassen sie auch tiefe Einblicke in die Mysterien des narkotisierten Untergrunds zu. Der Stoff liegt auf der Strasse. Der Narcocorrido ist kein schönes Genre, aber der Wahrheit oft sehr nahe - und eines, bei dem man vorsichtig sein muss. In einer Welt, in der der Tod eine gewichtige Rolle spielt, lebt man auch als Liedermacher gefährlich, wenn man die falschen Worte findet.

Den Kartellen scheinen sie zu gefallen. So bieten sie Schutz für ihre Barden und lassen sich, oft für mehrere tausend Dollar, Lieder für die Ewigkeit schreiben. Es finden sich Corridos über Caro Quintero, einst Boss seines Kartells und heute einer der wenigen grossen Gefangenen der mexikanischen Justiz. Oder über Rafael Arellano Félix, der nach offizieller Meinung tot ist, doch steht dies im Widerspruch zu einigen Corridos. Und da der mexikanischen Offizialität ohnehin seit Jahrzehnten nur widerwillig getraut wird, schenkt man lieber dem Corridista Glauben und das Mitgefühl dem Banditen. Deren Schandtaten werden unter den Mexikanern - speziell in den nördlichen Bundesstaaten und ihren Drogenanbaugebieten - ohnehin eher positiv bewertet. Oft tief religiös, stiften die Bosse Kirchen und organisieren Feste, investieren in legale Geschäfte und sorgen so für Arbeitsplätze. Die Schluchten der Sierra werden von ihnen künstlich bewässert - freilich nur, um die Nachbarn im Norden mit Marihuana zu versorgen. All das wird natürlich von ihren Chronisten besungen. Wobei der Droge selbst bis vor kurzem wenig Bedeutung zukam. Doch auch das hat sich in letzter Zeit geändert.

Mit dem Vorwurf, dass ihre Narcocorridos Menschen zum Drogenkonsum verleiten, leben die Corridistas seit «Contrabando y Traición». Die Antwort ist manchmal ein Achselzucken, selten mehr. Zu heuchlerisch scheint ihnen die Drogenpolitik auf der anderen Seite der Grenze. Mit einer Portion Fatalismus weist man darauf hin, dass Mexiko den USA zwar Drogen, die Amerikaner ihnen dafür illegal Waffen bringen. Ein tödliches Gleichgewicht, das durch ihre Lieder kaum gestört wird. Mit dem es sich gut verdienen lässt und worüber man erzählen kann in einer Sprache, die nur schwer durchschaubar ist für Aussenstehende. Eine archaische Codierung, die sich aus den Tiefen des einfachen Volkes entwickelt hat und in seltsamer Verbindung mit den Neologismen des internationalen Drogengeschäfts steht, durchzieht die Corridos.

In Culiacán versteht sie jeder. Die Hauptstadt Sinaloas ist für ihre Liebe zum Verbrechen berüchtigt. Hier wirkte auch der heilige Malverde, bis er, so die Legende, hingerichtet wurde. Doch sind die Angaben unsicher. Die mexikanischen Annalen kennen keinen Jesús Malverde. Was keinen Einfluss auf die Lieder hat. In manchen Versionen ist er Bauarbeiter, in anderen verlegt er Geleise. Manche sagen, er wurde von einem Freund betrogen, der ihm die Füsse abschnitt und ihn in die Stadt schleifte, um die 10 000 Pesos Belohnung einzustreichen. Andere reden vom Galgen. - Und in einem der Vororte Culiacáns findet man Chalino Sánchez nur wenige Monate nach seinem legendären Konzert erschossen in einem Strassengraben. Über seine Mörder spekulieren die Corridistas bis heute.

Andreas Essl

 

Narcocorrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas     by Elijah Wald     Published in English and Spanish editions by Rayo, an imprint of Harper Collins     ISBN: 0-06-621024-0   EXCERPT

Chapter One

The Father of Camelia

Ángel González

I was hitching out of Ciudad Cuauhtémoc when the police pulled over. It was 3:00 in the afternoon, the rain had just stopped, there was no bus, and I had an appointment in two hours with Ángel González, the father of the narcocorrido.

There were two policemen, driving in a pickup truck, and they started with the usual questions: Where was I going, how long had I been in Mexico, could they see my papers. They kept me a couple of extra minutes, calling my description in to headquarters, because a Mexican had recently been robbed by a gringo. Then they drove off, only to return some ten minutes later. I still had not gotten a ride, and was beginning to worry that I would be late for my appointment, so I was mildly irritated when they said that they would have to keep me there for a while until the victim could be brought to look at me. From my occasional experiences with Mexican police, I expected a long wait.

But no. It was not five minutes before another pickup pulled up, with two more policemen and a guy with dirty blond, shoulder-length hair, a limp mustache, and a really impressive black eye. The truck had barely stopped when the longhaired guy leapt out, pointing at me and yelling: "That's him! That's the cabrón who robbed me! He's cut his hair, but that's him!"

In an instant, I was slammed face-forward against the first pickup, with hands all over me. Someone was patting me for weapons, two others were pulling my arms down to handcuff me, while the fourth was shouting, "Keep your hands up!" I was trying to remain calm, repeating, "I can prove I just got to town. I was in Chihuahua this morning." No one was listening to me, but the victim seemed to be having second thoughts. He pulled up my sleeves, looking for track marks, and when he could not find any he began yelling that no, I was not the guy. By now, though, the cops were having fun. They had opened my pack and were asking the victim if the cassettes I had were his. He said no. Then they found my small stash of dollars — a couple of twenties, a ten, and some ones.

"Is this your money?" they asked the victim.

"No, mine was all hundred-dollar bills."

That was pretty much the end of it. The police removed the handcuffs, murmured an apology, and drove off, and I caught a ride out toward Basuchil. I did not feel like asking what business the longhaired guy was in.

In 1972, a new record swept Mexico. It featured a bunch of unknown teenagers called Los Tigres del Norte, who sang with the raw, country twang of the western Sierra Madre, backed by a stripped-down, accordion-powered polka beat, and it had a lyric unlike anything else on the radio. Called "Contrabando y Traición" (Smuggling and Betrayal), it told the story of a pair of lovers on a business trip:
 

Salieron de San Ysidro, procedentes de Tijuana,
Traían las llantas del carro repletas de hierba mala,
Eran Emilio Varela y Camelia la tejana.

(They left San Ysidro [a California border town], coming from Tijuana,
They had their car tires stuffed full of "bad grass" [marijuana],
They were Emilio Varela and Camelia the Texan.)

The couple make it safely across the border, are briefly stopped and questioned by immigration authorities in San Clemente, but pass without any problem and drive on to Los Angeles. Arriving in Hollywood, they meet their connection in a dim alleyway, change the tires, and get their money. Then Emilio gives Camelia her share and announces that with this money she can make a new start, but as for him, he is going up to San Francisco with "la dueña de mi vida," the woman who owns his life. Camelia, who has already been described as "a female with plenty of heart," does not take this farewell with good grace:
 

Sonaron siete balazos, Camelia a Emilio mataba,
La policía solo halló una pistola tirada,
Del dinero y de Camelia nunca más se supo nada.

(Seven shots rang out, Camelia killed Emilio,
The police only found the discarded pistol,
Of the money and Camelia nothing more was ever known.)

"Contrabando y Traición" was not the first corrido about the crossborder drug traffic. There had been ballads of border smuggling since the late nineteenth century, when import duties made it profitable to carry loads of undeclared textiles south to Mexico and a Mexican government monopoly tempted freelancers to sell homemade candle wax to North Americans without going through official channels. The smuggling business really took off, though, with the imposition of the Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited the sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States. Prohibition was a terrific boon to border commerce. Tequileros swam the Rio Grande pushing rafts full of booze, drove trucks across desert crossing points, or used boats to cruise up the coast.

When Prohibition ended in 1933, the tequileros turned to other products. (They were not alone; the Prohibition-era gangster Lucky Luciano also went on to smuggle Mexican heroin.) One year later, on October 13, 1934, what seems to be the first narcocorrido was recorded in San Antonio, Texas. Written by Juan Gaytan, of the duo Gaytan y Cantú, it was called "El Contrabandista" and told of a smuggler who has fallen into the clutches of the Texas lawmen after switching over from liquor to other illegal inebriants:

 

Comencí a vender champán, tequila y vino habanero,
Pero este yo no sabía lo que sufre un prisionero.
Muy Pronto compré automóvil, propiedad con residencia,
Sin saber que en poco tiempo iba a ir a la penitencia.
Por vender la cocaína, la morfina y mariguana,
Me llevaron prisionero a las dos de la mañana.

(I began selling champagne, tequila, and Havana wine,
But...

(Continues...)