Known throughout Mexico as "El Pelavacas" and "Mi Compa" (My Friend), Chalino was a Mexican immigrant living in Los Angeles.
Representative Casio Carlos Narváez explained that radio executives did not want to make "people who break the laws of our country into heroes and examples".
Like hip-hop and rap music, the narcocorrido is heard by many Spanish speakers who vary in age, and is popular among people who are not associated with cartels or gangs.
Original Spanish verse: Desde que yo era chiquillo tenia fintas de cabrón; ya le pegaba al perico, y a la mota con más razón Es que en mi México lindo ahí cualquiera es cabrón Exact English translation: Ever since I was a lad [child] I had the fame of a badass, already hittin' the parrot [cocaine] and blowing dope [cannabis] with more reason It's because in my beloved Mexico anyone there is a badass.
More traditional narcocorridos romanticized the trafficking lifestyle, but used many euphemisms (with words like "polvo" (dust) for cocaine and "cuerno" (horn) for the AK-47), and kept violence at a minimum (used only when or where a tragic event occurred).
[13] However, in the Movimiento alterado trend, the songs cynically and deliberately express the pride that modern narcotraffickers have in murdering, torture, beheading, and dismembering their rivals, using explicit descriptions of their exploits, and also naming the military grade weaponry they use (grenade throwers, body armor, "bazucas", AR15, 50 caliber bullets, knives etc.
)[14] The lyrics of a famous Movimiento alterado song, dedicated to the notorious cartel enforcer Manuel Torres Félix, starts as follows: With an AK-47 and a bazooka behind my headcross my path and I'll chop your head offI'm crazy and I like to kill my enemies,we're the best at kidnappingWe are always in a posse with bullet-proof vests, ready to execute.
These music groups and singers start to appear consistently on radio, television and public broadcasts with a strong promotion of their concerts.
This happens for a fixed amount of time, and in the same sudden way they appear, they stop their promotion and disappear from the music scene, or change their stage name.
Such artists are commonly manufactured by producers of dubious origin, who pay payola and do events in order to launder money from drug trafficking, prostitution or other illegal operations.
The most popular musicians killed were Valentín Elizalde and Sergio Gómez, the lead singer of Chicago-based Duranguense band K-Paz de la Sierra.
[24] Other murdered music industry figures include Javier Morales Gómez (a singer for Los Implacables del Norte), four members of Tecno Banda Fugaz, four members of Los Padrinos de la Sierra, Zayda Peña (a singer for Zayda Y Los Culpables), trumpeter José Luis Aquino of Los Conde, record producer Marco Abdalá, manager Roberto del Fierro Lugo, Jorge Antonio Sepúlveda, Jesús Rey David Alfaro Pulido, Nicolás Villanueva of tropical group Brisas del Mar, four members of Los Herederos de Sinaloa, and the singer Fabian Ortega Pinon (El Halcon de la Sierra), who was executed along with two other victims in Guerrero, Chihuahua, in August 2006.
Narcocorrido expert Elijah Wald has disputed the assumption that any of the murders were related or that musicians on the whole are targets for drug traffickers.
In the wake of the high-profile murders of Elizalde and Gómez, among others, some prominent corrido musicians postponed concert dates in certain parts of Mexico.
[32] Narcocorrido singers travel with relative ease and security inside the United States, but many Mexican American narcocorrido singers take extra precautions while venturing into Mexico by hiring extra security, traveling in well-guarded caravans, not being as open to the public in larger concerts, and limiting their tours in high violence cities in Mexico.
[28] Likewise, some vendors of narcocorrido CDs have reported low sales, citing fear among listeners of buying a CD featuring songs favoring one group of traffickers over another.
In one incident, the tortured and mutilated bodies of a man and a woman who had posted about cartels on social media were found hanging off a bridge in the city of Nuevo León, in September 2011.