This white girl educates you on corridos…

When I first met Jose, all music on La Maquina Musical could fit under one category:  annoying.

Be it Banda, Grupera, Nortena, Ranchera, etc.  I didn’t discriminate; I hated all of it equally for the first couple of months. 

Once I started getting a little more used to Mexican music, one particular style just didn’t mesh well with my ears.  I’m speaking of the corrido, or even more specifically, the narco corrido. 

This is what Wikipedia has to say about the narco corrido:

“A narcocorrido is a kind of Mexican music which evolved out of the norteño folk corrido tradition, using a danceable, accordion-based polka as a rhythmic base. Corridos have long described the poor and destitute, bandits and other criminals, as well as illegal immigrants to the United States, but the focus on drug smugglers — the “narco” in the name narcocorrido is short for narcotics — is a relatively recent phenomenon of the past 50 years. Narcocorrido lyrics refer to particular events, and even include real dates and places ^[1]. The lyrics tend to speak approvingly of the criminal activities.”

Sounds fascinating, doesn’t it?  Some very famous Mexican artists are famous for their narco corridos. Los Tigres Del Norte (Tigres from the North), Los Tucanes De Tijuana (Tucans from Tijuana), el Halcon De La Sierra (The Hawk from the Mountains), and El Exterminador (with all these animals up in here this guy is the Exterminator ).

Anyways…

These songs have grown on me.  I’ve actually purchased CDs from the above artists!!  Crazy, isn’t it?!  My white self grooving to Mexican guys singing in Spanish about the smuggling of drugs and other crazy illegal stuff. 

Who’d have thought…