16 Narco Corridos

Album Review

The term "thug life" has often been used in connection with gangsta rap, but songs about criminality can also be found in everything from salsa (Willie Colón and Rubén Blades' "Pedro Navaja") to Colombian vallenato (Rafael Escalona's "Almirante Padilla") to outlaw country (Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues," Johnny Paycheck's "I'm the Only Hell My Mama Ever Raised," Merle Haggard's "The Legend of Bonnie & Clyde") to a very underground type of Southern Italian folk known as il canto di malavita — which means "song of the bad life" in Italian and focuses on the organized crime of the 'Ndrangheta (Calabrian mafia), the Camorra (Neapolitan mafia), and la Cosa Nostra (Sicilian mafia). And anyone who is seriously into regional Mexican music is well aware of all the controversy that has surrounded narcocorridos, which are corridos (Mexican folk narratives) about drug smuggling. Narcocorridos have been around for decades — many norteño fans discovered narcocorridos when los Tigres del Norte gave us classics like "Contrabando y Traición" ("Contraband and Betrayal") and "La Banda del Carro Rojo" ("The Red Car Gang") back in the 1970s — and their popularity has grown despite all the controversy surrounding them. Many radio stations in Mexico will no doubt refuse to play Larry Hernandez' 16 Narco Corridos, which is their prerogative. But blaming Hernandez for drug-related violence in Mexico is sort of like blaming Martin Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola for organized crime in Southern Italy; art that candidly addresses the realities of thug life isn't necessarily glamorizing or promoting thug life. And the word "candid" certainly describes 16 Narco Corridos, which is full of Spanish-language references to pistoleros (gunmen), asesinos (murderers), secuestros (kidnappings), armas (weapons) and, of course, drogas (drugs). Lyrically, Hernandez holds nothing back; "El Taliban," for example, is about Mexican drug traffickers who decapitate members of rival drug cartels. But as gritty as Hernandez' lyrics are, his vocal style isn't angry, threatening, or confrontational but rather, exhibits a folksy sort of charm. 16 Narco Corridos isn't going to win over people who have been critical or disdainful of narcocorridos, but it is well worth a listen if one is already a fan of the controversial, hard-hitting narratives.