Gangsters turn their guns on the folk musicians who sing of drugs

It is Mexico’s answer to gangsta rap – but with a body count that makes the badlands of South Central Los Angeles look decidedly tame.

The songs are known as narcocorridos: folk tunes, set to frantic polka rhythms, many of which have lyrics that celebrate drug lords and human traffickers and how they stand up to the authorities. But the music – whose lyrics are often used as PR by gang leaders, sometimes citing real dates and places of crimes – is coming at an extraordinary cost, with at least eight performers killed in gruesome circumstances this year.”*

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