Why Mexico is banning pop songs about narcos

[Zorro]

In a packed nightclub in Mexico City, hundreds of young people sang along as a band played a popular song narrating the life of a foot soldier for the Sinaloa drug cartel.

I like to work/ And if the order is to kill / You don’t question it.

And for those who misbehave/ There’s no chance to explain/ I throw them into the grave.

Narcocorridos — or drug ballads — are more popular than ever in Mexico, where a new generation that came of age during the ongoing drug war has embraced songs that recount and often glamorize both the spoils and perils of organized crime.

But the genre is increasingly under attack. About a third of Mexico’s states and many of its cities have enacted some kind of ban on the performance of songs about narcos in recent years, with violators subject to heavy fines and jail time.

Mexico City may be next. Mayor Clara Brugada said she plans to introduce a law that would bar the songs from being played at government events and on government property.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-05-11/la-fg-mexico-narcocorrido-ban

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1. A little late, I'd say! Anyone remember this?

It's a narcocorrido written--in 2009--for the show Breaking Bad.

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