LETTER FROM MEXICO CITY

The phenomenon is recent but undeniable: The world is discovering Mexican music. According to Spotify, streaming of Mexican songs has increased by 431% since 2019. The music magazine Billboard, meanwhile, observed growth of 42% in 2023 in the United States.

Topping the list is a 24-year-old Mexican singer named Peso Pluma who, despite his name meaning "featherweight," now carries a lot of weight in the music industry: In 2023, he was the most viewed singer on YouTube in the US, totaling 8.5 billion views, far outstripping American artists such as Taylor Swift or Bad Bunny.

Others, singers such as Natanael Cano, Junior H and Eslabon Armado, are also finding success in foreign markets, even though they are all under 25. "It's a huge cultural change. For years, of the 20 most listened-to songs in the world, 19 were American, or at least sung in English. Now, two or three are in Spanish, thanks to Mexican artists," explained Juan Carlos Ramirez-Pimienta, research professor at San Diego State University in California.

However, Mexico has not been boasting about the international success of its musicians. And for good reason: These young artists are the latest incarnations of narcocorrido singers, composing ballads glorifying the capos (drug lords), having revolutionized the genre's melodies while keeping traditional instruments.

"Their style blends influences from hip-hop, trap and funk with Mexican brass, guitars and double basses. Their arrangements are highly original and effective, which explains their success," explained Ramirez-Pimienta, also author of a book on the subject: Cantar a los Narcos ("Sing the Narcos," 2011, untranslated). Peso Pluma and others like him were the subject of the documentary Mexique: Le Chant des Cartels ("Mexico: The song of the Cartels") on French-German broadcaster Arte, directed by Alex Gohari and Léo Mattei.

This new generation of artists refer to their narcocorridos by new names: corridos tumbados ("upside-down corridos") or corridos bélicos ("warrior corridos"). The style has also changed: gone are the wide hats and cowboy boots favored by corrido singers such as Valentin Elizalde and Los Tigres del Norte. Peso Pluma now takes to the stage wearing a balaclava and an orange jumpsuit or Bermuda shorts and a baseball cap.

Other elements, however, have hardly changed in the narco-Mexican aesthetic: Guns, big cars and pretty girls (mute and smiling) are as present as ever. For example, the video clip for the song "El Belicon," which has been viewed 290 million times on YouTube, shows Peso Pluma and Raul Vega wearing bulletproof vests and carrying large-caliber weapons to tell the story of a trafficker, El Belicon, who travels only in convoys and constantly eludes law enforcement. The drug lords are always described in the same terms – strong, generous and rich – because some of these corridos are written at the request of the capos.

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