The Colombian Sofía Vergara premiered the series on Netflix Griselda, who stars in the role of the 'Coca Queen'. The faces of Pablo Escobar and Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán appear printed on T-shirts sold in markets around the planet. The Mexican Featherweight's narcocorridos, after Chile, will be at the legendary Coachella, in California. These events have in common the phenomenon of narcoculture, a product that Latin America is exporting. to the world with unprecedented success and much controversy.
The cultural industry's fascination with drug traffickers is not new. Scarface, the film starring Al Pacino about a Cuban drug trafficker in Miami, has just turned 40 and has become a cinema classic. And another emblem – in this case of TV – is Breaking Badconsidered one of the best series of all time, which tells the story of a mediocre high school teacher who becomes a powerful methamphetamine producer.
In both cases they are North American productions in which Latin appears on the margins and with a negative connotation. But now, These marginals assault the screens and stages of the world while constructing a new narrative around drug trafficking, sometimes bordering on apology.
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Featherweight is the clearest example. “And, well lined, the packages go / There is no slope, I cannot fail / I am always ready to cross / Dust, wheels and also glass.” The chorus of his megahit PRC It describes the activity of an average trafficker, and is sung by millions of people, including children. Because of his lyrics and his image (balaclava, expensive cars, diamond teeth), This 24-year-old artist ignited controversy in Chile after being confirmed as the star number at the Viña del Mar Festival. organized by the Municipality of that coastal city.
“On March 1, on the screens of the State channel, we will hear the voice of the drug trafficker,” sociologist Carlos Mayol wrote in a commented opinion column. The scandal reached the Chilean Parliament, There was talk of apology for drug trafficking and – at the other extreme – of censorship. Afterwards, the organizers confirmed the presence of Peso Pluma at the festival, although the end of the story is open because the Justice Department later accepted legal action to block their performance.
Today, Mayol continues to defend his critical stance towards the Mexican artist. He says that he did not try to censure him but rather defend “constitutional principles,” because “Freedom of expression is not absolute.” In dialogue with Connectas, he said that “the State cannot be spending resources on combating drug trafficking and at the same time promoting it.” And he added that “the underlying issue is not the cancellation of the recital, but rather a conception of the way in which the public should behave with respect to its own objectives. It is the conversation that I have raised.”
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Sofía Vergara plays the cocaine trafficker Griselda Blanco.
Courtesy of Netflix
antihero stories
“Drug cartels and other criminal groups began to use corridos to spread their own news, to promote their own heroes, to spread their values”
But how much truth is there in the fact that Peso Pluma's music romanticizes or even glorifies drug traffickers? In reality, this, the first Mexican to reach number one on Spotify's Global Top, is with his colleague Natanael Cano the latest emerging of a genre, narcocorridos, with a long tradition. Songs that tell stories of working class antiheroes who fight against their inevitable destiny: poverty and violent death. They only have the alternative of getting involved in illegal drug trafficking to the United States, with its promise of easy money, the power that weapons give and the pleasure that women offer.
Corridos were born at the beginning of the 20th century to celebrate the popular heroes of the Mexican Revolution. The current 'corridos tumbados' are derived from them, whose success explains the writer and music journalist Oscar Adame: “Drug cartels and other criminal groups began to use this musical genre to spread their own news, to promote their own heroes, to spread your values. Posters cannot be promoted in a newspaper, on a television program; but they can have their runs, yes they can have their speech word of mouth, yes they can have Peso Pluma writing their songs and Natanael Cano presenting them. “They want recognition.” Unlike Mayol, Adame does not point out Peso Pluma for supposedly claiming responsibility for drug trafficking. For him, the singer is only “reflecting more deeply what the country is, even if they are controversial topics,” he justifies.
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But this phenomenon is not exclusive to Mexico. In fact, it is manifested in other parts of Latin America, where narcoculture is expressed through music and other aspects of daily life.
It happens in Colombia, where the sightseeing tours of places where Pablo Escobar built his drug empire in Medellín; it was too The patron of evil, the television series that portrayed him. And in Ecuador, a country that today faces its greatest challenge with drug trafficking, narcoculture has permeated even everyday speech. An example is “andamo rulay”, a phrase that emerged from a song by a 'narco gang' that is repeated in neighborhoods dominated by armed groups and that means 'partying in the streets'.
Similar situations are experienced in the south of the region. In Argentina there is 'cumbia narco', with musicians who record videos of themselves surrounded by dollars, packages of cocaine and weapons, while they sing about the exploits of drug traffickers. In Chile, 'narcopop' emerging from the poorest neighborhoods of the country's capital is today the most listened to music.
In Ecuador they do not doubt that the cartels themselves finance this music industry. There, the most famous drug trafficker, José Adolfo Macías Villamar (alias Fito, recently escaped from prison), From prison, he stars in the video of a song that honors him, The Lion Run, where his daughter even sings. On YouTube and other networks such as TikTok and Instagram, the prone corridos of Peso Pluma and other artists find their largest audience. On these platforms, narcoculture is expressed in another parallel phenomenon: the “hallucination.” It is a label that alludes to “pretending another life” and that accompanies videos where users of all ages display themselves in designer clothing, luxury cars, wads of cash and weapons, many weapons.
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Here another aspect appears to analyze the expansion of narcoculture: its degree of representation of reality. Is the life of a drug dealer that 'romantic'? América Becerra, a Mexican academic who has been studying the phenomenon among young people in her country, responds: “The expressions of narcoculture, called corridos, literature about hitmen and traffickers, films and series, take elements from reality“, says. But he clarifies that “it should be considered that the cultural industry, in order to make them attractive to audiences, adds elements of fiction. Well, drug trafficking is a high-risk area where death is always present, and wealth and power are not always achieved.”
Laura Alicino, a researcher at the University of Bologna, also works on the influence of narcoism on mass culture. For her, “it has always represented a great fascination, both for mass media and for other forms of art, such as literature. I am Italian and in the history of artistic products in my country, mafias are very present. For example, with the legacy that has represented and still represents cult films like The Godfather”.
The film 'The Godfather', by Francis Ford Coppola, tells the story of one of the families of the Italian Cosa Nostra, an Italian mafia structure, which operates in New York.
Violence and merchandise
“Violence has become the new mark of exoticism in Latin America. In this sense, violence can also be a commodity and narcoculture becomes the brand.”
In the case of our region, he highlights that “violence has become the new brand of exoticism in Latin America. In this sense, violence can also be a commodity and narcoculture becomes the brand”. This is evident in cinema or music.
It is clear that art and narcocorridos, in particular, did not give rise to drug trafficking or the violence that is associated with it. Peso Pluma is not a drug trafficker – although some accuse him of being in the pay of cartels – nor do those who listen to his songs become drug lords. It is also clear that lyrics like “I like to work / and if the order is to kill / that is not questioned” are on the limit of apologizing for crime. But censorship not only does not affect criminal activity in the slightest, but it adds to narcoculture the fascination of the forbidden.
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Because, as Becerra explains, “narcoculture has developed alongside drug trafficking. So as long as there continue to be acts of violence, organized crime, “There will continue to be cultural expressions that reflect these scenarios through TV series, movies, novels and songs.” AND If one day drug trafficking ends, no one should doubt that the celebration of violence, death and easy money will continue to resonate in universal culture. Because characters like Tony Montana, the Soprano or Walter White did not come from the Latin American imagination but from American screenwriters trained in the greatest cradle of the audiovisual industry: Hollywood.
Argentine journalist. Member of the Editorial Board of Connectas. He was editor of the newspaper 'Los Andes'. He is a journalism professor at the National University of Cuyo, Argentina.
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