Corrido

The corrido (Spanish pronunciation: [koˈriðo]) is a famous narrative metrical tale and poetry that forms a ballad.

The songs often feature topics such as oppression, history, daily life for criminals, the vaquero lifestyle, and other socially relevant themes.

[5] Until the arrival and success of electronic mass media (mid-20th century), the corrido served in Mexico as the leading informational and educational outlet, even with subversive purposes, due to an apparent linguistic and musical simplicity that lent itself to oral transmission.

In more rural areas where Spanish and Mexican cultures have been preserved because of isolation, the romance has also taken on other forms related to the corrido.

The earliest living specimens of corrido are adapted versions of Spanish romances or European tales, mainly about disgraced or idealized love or religious topics.

Before the widespread use of radio, popular corridos were passed around as an oral tradition, often to spread the news of events (for example, La cárcel de Cananea) and famous heroes and humour to the population, many of whom were illiterate before the post-Revolution improvements to the educational system.

The academic study of corridos written during the Revolution shows that they were used to communicate news throughout Mexico as a response to the propaganda being spread in the newspapers, which the corrupt government of Porfirio Díaz owned.

Other corrido sheets were passed out free as a form of propaganda to eulogize leaders, armies, and political movements or, in some cases, to mock the opposition.

The best-known Revolutionary corrido is "La Cucaracha", an old song rephrased to celebrate the exploits of Pancho Villa's army and poke fun at his nemesis Victoriano Huerta.

With the consolidation of "Presidencialismo" (the political era following the Mexican Revolution) and the success of electronic mass media, the corrido lost its primacy as a mass communication form, becoming part of a folklorist cult in one branch and, in another, the voice of the new subversives: oppressed workers, drug growers or traffickers, leftist activists and emigrated farm workers (mainly to the United States).

Scholars designate this as the "decaying" stage of the genre, which tends to erase the stylistic or structural characteristics of "revolutionary" or traditional corrido without a clear and unified understanding of its evolution.

This is mainly signified by the "narcocorrido", many of which are egocentric ballads paid for by drug smugglers to anonymous and almost illiterate composers, but with others coming from the most popular norteño and banda artists and written by some of the most successful and influential ranchera composers.In the Mestizo-Mexican cultural area, the three variants of corrido (romance, revolutionary and modern) are both alive and sung, along with popular sister narrative genres, such as the "valona" of Michoacán state, the "son arribeño" of the Sierra Gorda (Guanajuato, Hidalgo and Querétaro states) and others.

Its vitality and flexibility allow original corrido lyrics to be built on non-Mexican musical genres, such as blues and ska, or with non-Spanish lyrics, like the famous song El Paso by Marty Robbins, and corridos composed or translated by Mexican indigenous communities or by the "Chicano" people in the United States, in English or "Spanglish".

The corrido was, for example, a favourite device employed by the Teatro Campesino led by Luis Valdez in mobilizing predominantly Mexican and Mexican-American farmworkers in California during the 1960s.

[7] The earliest form of corridos emerged in the Mexican Revolution and told stories of revolutionary leaders and battles.

Narcocorridos typically use accurate dates and places to tell mainly stories of drug smuggling, including violence, murder, poverty, corruption, and crime.

[9] As drug lords grew in influence, people idolized them and began to show their respect and admiration through narcocorridos.

[10] While commercial corridos are available to the public, private narcocorridos are restricted to nightclubs that are frequently attended by drug dealers or through CDs bought on the street.

Today, narcocorridos are popular in Latin American countries like Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Guatemala and Honduras.

[15] Since 2023, this subgenre of corridos saw a major boom on the mainstream scene all around the world, with popular artists appearing on songs.

These artists include Eladio Carrión, Myke Towers and Argentinian producer Bizarrap, who released a music session with Peso Pluma, which became a major hit.

Gregorio landed at the Abran de la Garza sheep camp on June 22, 1901, where he started to talk with a man named Jesús González.

The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez is a corrido that is well known by Mexican Americans who live near the Rio Grande border between the United States and Mexico.

Cortez ended up becoming a folk hero, and it helped inspire stories of heroism and told the "spirit of the border strife."

Many people called Cortez a hero because his biography and the corrido both involved him running away from the rinches, or Texas Rangers.