The Historical and Cultural Analysis of Narcocorridos in Mexico and Colombia

The history of drug trafficking is as complicated as it is dangerous. People have risked their lives for centuries in order to move illicit commodities across borders. While the cartels of Mexico and Colombia continue to move these goods, they use their brute power to intimidate politicians, law enforcement officers, and journalists, to recruit young males to join the business, and to incentivize campesinos to grow illicit crops. The cartels are also known to flex their muscles to the world through public acts of violence including explosions of public transportation and shopping malls. People live in a constant state of fear because those that should be helping the situation, politicians and police, are either too scared or being paid off. Although there is a culture of fear, there is also a culture of celebrating drug traffickers through songs, narcocorridos, in night-clubs and on the internet, a seemly contradictory practice; particularly because they are banned in some states of Mexico. The narcocorridos directly reflect the drug trade, the weak governments, and the violence, providing insight to their popularity as an instrument of rebellion