Narcocorridos: Sing at Your Own Risk

Narco and immigration corridos are a controversial musical genre, popular in Mexico, which immortalizes the lives of drug dealers, gangsters, and illegal immigrants. Mexico's international reputation as a Narco State in song, if you will.

The music, as you can hear in this video, about the Tijuana cartel, comes across as folksy and upbeat.



But crooning about drug dealers can mean a soulful singer's death.

So, Jerry Kammer, writing for CIS, wants to know why Univision, the Spanish-language television station, “glorifies” narcocorridos by running their ads: "Jorge Ramos grilled the mayor of Juarez today on his Spanish-language television program, Al Punto. The Univision newsman expressed indignation at the unrelenting violence that drug traffickers have inflicted upon that border city across from El Paso. He asked why the mayor hadn’t resigned. Noting the five thousand killings in Juarez during the last two years, Ramos asked Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz, 'Isn't that a terrible sign of failure?'

Here's a question Ramos should ask the business side of the Univision, especially those who sell advertising and schedule it into the network's programming: Why would you follow the Ramos-Reyes interview with an advertisement for the 'narcocorridos' that glorify the drug-trafficking life?"

What say you, Mr. Ramos?