Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Thousands of sweaty fans packed into a concert hall in Guadalajara last month to hear Los Alegres del Barranco perform their hits \u2014 including jaunty ballads, like \u201cEl Del Palenque\u201d, that celebrate the exploits of drug traffickers. When images of that song\u2019s hero, cartel leader Nemesio \u201cEl Mencho\u201d Oseguera, appeared on the screen, many revellers erupted into cheers.Such scenes are typical of narcocorridos, a popular genre of Mexican regional music that romanticises cartel figures, their armies and their journey from poverty to riches. But the country\u2019s reaction to this particular concert was different. The event took place weeks after the discovery of a cartel training camp run by Mencho\u2019s men, full of piles of clothing and bone fragments. Footage of the concert ignited political outrage across Mexico.The fallout has been swift. Band members had their US visas cancelled for allegedly supporting Oseguera\u2019s murderous Jalisco New Generation Cartel, listed as a terrorist organisation by the US. Several local governments in Mexico have passed or proposed bans on public performances of narcocorridos. Other popular bands have sworn never to play trafficker-inspired songs again. Mexican regional music has exploded in popularity in recent years thanks to streaming and social media \u2014 a phenomenon that made Mexican singer Peso Pluma the most streamed artist on YouTube in the US in 2023.But political opposition to narcocorridos is growing. The Guadalajara concert came at a particularly sensitive time for Mexico. Combined, homicides and disappearances reached around 40,000 people last year, close to a record high, with sporadic decapitations and massacres across different states \u2014 polls show security is the country\u2019s number one concern.Following the discovery of Oseguera\u2019s killing ground, President Claudia Sheinbaum was forced to respond with a new plan to locate the country\u2019s 120,000 missing people.Sheinbaum is also battling to convince US President Donald Trump that she is doing enough to dismantle organised crime. He has said that Mexico\u2019s government has an \u201cintolerable alliance\u201d with drug cartels who supply the fentanyl that kills tens of thousands of Americans each year. With roots in Spanish medieval epic poems, ballads \u2014 or corridos \u2014 about local bandits became popular during the Mexican revolution in the early 20th century. The shift to drug dealers happened in the 1970s and 1980s, says Rafael Acosta Morales, associate professor of Latin American cultural studies at the University of North Carolina.\u201cAt that point, the corridos were absolutely fictional, and mostly they were just things that some composers thought would sound cool,\u201d he says. \u201cNot very long after, we started hearing corridos about particular drug runners.\u201dCorridos became a key element of propaganda for cartels, he adds. On the streets of cities like Culiac\u00e1n, Sinaloa, home to the Sinaloa Cartel, bands play open auditions of corridos, hoping to be hired for local parties. Sheinbaum has said that musical groups shouldn\u2019t be apologists for violence, but she is against banning songs. Instead, she is promoting a government-sponsored music contest with \u201cpositive\u201d messages.The industry\u2019s defenders say their music reflects reality, and that performance bans will not loosen the grip cartels hold over Mexico. Juan Carlos Ram\u00edrez-Pimienta, Spanish professor at San Diego State University, also points out that much popular culture is controversial, including hyper-violent gangster films.Previous attempts to ban narcocorridos have failed. \u201cThey\u2019ve been going on since the \u201990s,\u201d Ram\u00edrez-Pimienta says. \u201cI don\u2019t think popular culture can be legislated.\u201dLos Alegres del Barranco were called in by Jalisco state prosecutors last week. But their song about Oseguera went viral. The question is whether a crackdown will reshape the industry or drive it underground. Acosta Morales believes the latter. \u201cIf you censor narcocorridos, you\u2019re just turning narcocorridistas into popular heroes.\u201dchristine.murray@ft.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Thousands of sweaty fans packed into a concert hall in Guadalajara last month to hear Los Alegres del Barranco perform their hits \u2014 including jaunty ballads,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":287847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-287846","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287846"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":287848,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287846\/revisions\/287848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}