Colombian actress Sofia Vergara is premiering the Netflix series Griselda, in which she stars as the “Queen of Cocaine”. T-shirts with the faces of Pablo Escobar and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman are sold in markets around the world. Soon after his presentation in Chile, Peso Pluma’s narcocorridos (drug ballads) will make its way to Coachella, the legendary festival in California. The element in common between these facts is narcoculture, Latin America’s most unprecedented, lucrative and highly controversial export.
Popular culture’s fascination with drug traffickers is not new. Forty years ago, Scarface depicted the life of a Cuban drug lord in Miami, and the film (starring Al Pacino) became a classic of the industry. Another example is Breaking Bad, considered one of the best TV series of all time, is an account of the life of a mediocre high-school teacher turned methamphetamine manufacturer.
Both American productions portray Latino culture on the margins and with negative connotations. However, nowadays, that marginalized population is globally taking over the screens and stages while they build a new narrative of drug trafficking – sometimes pushing the limits and defending it.
Peso Pluma is the clearest case. In his megahit “PRC”, he sings: “And tightly wrapped, the bricks travel / Nothing pending, I can’t disappoint / Always ready to cross / Cocaine, ecstasy and crystal too.” This description of an average drug trafficker is sung by millions of people, children included. Due to his lyrics and looks (ski masks, expensive cars, diamond grills), the 24 year-old artist sparked controversy after being confirmed as headliner for the Viña del Mar International Song Festival, organized by the municipality of that coastal city.
“Come March 1st, drug trafficker’s voices will be heard on the screens of the State-run network,” wrote sociologist Carlos Mayol in a much-talked-about opinion piece. The scandal reached the Chilean parliament, where it was referred to either as supporting drug trafficking and (on the other hand) as censorship. Despite the fact that organizers ratified the presence of Peso Pluma in the festival, nothing is final yet because the justice system accepted a legal action filed to block the artist’s performance.
Peso Pluma y la polémica por el Festival Viña del Mar: ¿qué pasó y qué han dicho los involucrados? https://t.co/GiA7Nxt6Af
— CNN en Español (@CNNEE) January 18, 2024
Mayol continues defending his criticism of the Mexican artist. He says that his intention was never to censor the artist, but to stand up for “constitutional principles” because “freedom of speech is not absolute.” In conversation with CONNECTAS, he asserted that “the State can’t spend resources fighting drug trafficking and promote it at the same time.” And he added that “the bottom line is not canceling the show, but understanding how public matters must be conducted based on the objectives that have been set forth. That is the conversation I’m suggesting.”
But does Peso Pluma’s music romanticize and glorify drug traffickers? In fact, he is the first Mexican to reach the first position in Spotify’s Global Top. He and his colleague Natanael Cano are the latest up-and-comers of the narcocorridos genre, traditional in their country. These songs tell the stories of working class antiheroes struggling against their inevitable fate: poverty and a violent death. Their only option is to get involved in the traffic of illegal drugs to the United States, a choice that comes along with easy money, power deriving from weapons and the pleasures of female company.
Corridos appeared at the turn of the 20th century to celebrate the popular heroes of the Mexican Revolution. The current corridos tumbados are a derivative, whose success is explained by writer and musical journalist Oscar Adame (who has studied this genre): “Drug cartels and other criminal groups began using this musical genre to spread their news, to promote their own heroes, to disseminate their values. Cartels can’t advertise in newspapers, nor on TV shows; but they can have their own corridos, their own word-of-mouth, they can have Peso Pluma writing songs for them and Natanael Cano performing. They aim at popular recognition and at having them on their side.”
Unlike Mayol, Adame doesn’t point at Peso Pluma for allegedly defending drug trafficking. He thinks that the singer is only exposing a culture that exists in Mexico: “He is showing what the country is at its core, in spite of the controversy of it all,” he justifies.
This phenomenon, deeply rooted in Mexico, has transcended boundaries in Latin America. There, narcoculture has found ways of expression through music and in other aspects of daily life. Examples include children’s birthday parties or funerals, in which the luxury and violence of drug lords is celebrated.
It takes place in Colombia, tours around the places where Pablo Escobar built his drug empire in Medellin are a hit, and so is the TV series El Patron del mal, a portrayal of the drug lord’s life. In Ecuador (the country that faces the greatest challenge due to this crime), narcoculture has permeated even ordinary speech. “Andamo rulay” is a sentence taken from a song by a narcoband that is played in neighborhoods where armed groups are based, it means “partying in the streets.”
Similar situations are happening south of the continent. In Argentina “cumbia narco” is played by musicians who record videos parading dollars, bricks of cocaine and weapons, as they sing about the feats of drug traffickers. Similarly in Chile, narcopop, which has surged from the capital city’s poorest neighborhoods, is amongst the most listened to.
In Ecuador, there is no doubt that cartels finance this particular music industry. The country’s most infamous drug lord, Jose Adolfo “Fito” Macias Villamar (who recently escaped prison) stars in the video of “El Corrido del Leon”, a song that acclaims him and in which his daughter sings.
But it is in YouTube and other social media such as TikTok and Instagram where corridos tumbados performed by Peso Pluma and other artists have found its broadest audience. On these platforms, narcoculture is expressed through the “alucin”. This parallel phenomenon alludes to “pretending to live a different life” and it is used to tag videos of users of all ages who display branded clothes, fancy cars, rolls of bills, and weapons… many weapons. These regular people are vicariously living out this fiction, aware that their reality will never be close to that “alucin”.
The aforementioned portrayal of reality provides a hint to analyze the expansion of narcoculture. Is the life of a drug lord that “romantic”? America Becerra, Mexican academic who has studied this phenomenon in her country’s youngsters, answers: “All of the expressions of narcoculture, be it corridos, literature on hit men, movies and TV series about drug lords, are based on elements of reality,” she says. But she clarifies that “we have to consider that popular culture adds elements of fiction to make it appealing to audiences. Drug trafficking is always risky, and wealth and power are not always attained.”
Laura Alicino, researcher at University of Bologna, also focuses on the influence of narcoculture on the masses. For her, “it has always fascinated mass media and other forms of art, such as literature. I’m Italian, and mafias are present in my country’s art products to a large extent. For instance, in the legacy of The Godfather movies.”
Pertaining to our region, she highlights that “violence has become the new brand of Latin America’s exoticism. In that regard, violence can be a commodity, and thus, narcoculture can be a brand.” This is apparent in film or music “due to the visual nature of these media, so it is capable of directly connecting certain knowledge than other media, such as literature.”
It is clear that art, and narcocorridos in particular, didn’t give rise to drug trafficking or to its associated violence either. Peso Pluma is not a drug trafficker (although some accuse him of being paid by cartels) and people who listen to his music don’t turn into drug lords. It is also clear that lyrics such as: “I like to work / And if the command is to kill / It is not questioned”, are borderline supporting a crime. Even though censorship doesn’t affect criminal activity at all, it builds up the fascination of the forbidden in narcoculture.
As Becerra explains, “narcoculture has developed in parallel with drug trafficking. As long as there is violence and organized crime there will be cultural expressions that reflect these scenarios in TV series, movies, books and songs.”
And if drug trafficking does come to an end someday, let us remember that violence, death, and easy money will still resonate in universal culture. Characters such as Tony Montana, the Sopranos or Walter White weren’t put on paper by Latin Americans, but from screenwriters trained in Hollywood, the cradle of the film industry.